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THE LIFE 



JOHN STERLING. 




THOMAS CARLYLE. 



[1851-] 



LONDON: 

CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 

1871. 






LONDON : 
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. 



***?**>* 

-&*?+» 

*^°* 



£"?* 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP 
I. 


PART I. 
Introductory 


PAGE 
I 


II. 


Birth and Parentage -. 


7 


III. 


Schools ; Llanblethian ; Paris ; London 


12 


IV. 


Universities : Glasgow ; Cambridge 


26 


V. 


A Profession 


33 


VI. 


Literature : The Athenaeum .... 


38 


VII. 


Regent Street ..... 


40 


VIII. 


Coleridge 


46 


IX. 


Spanish Exiles ..... 


54 


X. 
XI. 


Torrijos ....... 

Marriage : Ill-Health ; West-Indies 


57 
64 


XII. 


Island of St. Vincent .... 


67 


XIII. 


A Catastrophe ..... 


75 


XIV. 


Pause 


78 


XV. 




8t 



PART II. 

I. Curate ........ 87 

II. Not Curate 90 

III. Bayswater 104 

IV. To Bordeaux 114 

V. To Madeira 126 

VI. Literature : The Sterling Club . . .136 
VII. Italy ' , . .141 



IV 



CONTENTS. 



PART III. 

CHAP. 



I. Clifton 






161 


II. Two Winters .... 






174 


III. Falmouth : Poems . 






183 


IV. Naples : Poems 






197 


V. Disaster on Disaster 






206 


VI. Ventnor : Death . 






218 


VII. Conclusion .... 






230 


Summary • 237 


Index ...... 






245 



LIFE OF JOHN STERLING. 



PART FIRST. 
CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

Near seven years ago, a short while before his death in 1 844, 
John Sterling committed the care of his literary Character and 
printed Writings to two friends, Archdeacon Hare and myself. 
His estimate of the bequest was far from overweening ; to few 
men could the small sum-total of his activities in this world 
seem more inconsiderable than, in those last solemn days, it 
did to him. He had burnt much ; found much unworthy ; 
looking steadfastly into the silent continents of Death and 
Eternity, a brave man's judgments about his own sorry work 
in the field of Time are not apt to be too lenient. But, in 
fine, here was some portion of his work which the world had 
already got hold of, and which he could not burn. This too, 
since it was not to be abolished and annihilated, but must still 
for some time live and act, he wished to be wisely settled, as 
the rest had been. And so it was left in charge to us, the 
survivors, to do for it what we judged fittest, if indeed doing 
nothing did not seem the fittest to us. This message, com- 
municated after his decease, was naturally a sacred one to 
Mr. Hare and me. 

After some consultation on it, and survey of the difficulties 

B 



2 JOHN STERLING. 

and delicate considerations involved in it, Archdeacon Hare 
and I agreed that the whole task, of selecting what Writings 
were to be reprinted, and of drawing-up a Biography to intro- 
duce them, should be left to him alone ; and done without 
interference of mine : — as accordingly it was, 1 in a manner 
surely far superior to the common, in every good quality of 
editing ; and visibly everywhere bearing testimony to the 
friendliness, the piety, perspicacity and other gifts and virtues 
of that eminent and amiable man. 

In one respect, however, if in one only, the arrangement 
had been unfortunate. Archdeacon Hare, both by natural 
tendency and by his position as a Churchman, had been led, 
in editing a Work not free from ecclesiastical heresies, and 
especially in writing a Life very full of such, to dwell with pre- 
ponderating emphasis on that part of his subject ; by no means 
extenuating the fact, nor yet passing lightly over it (which a 
layman could have done) as needing no extenuation ; but care- 
fully searching into it, with the view of excusing and explaining 
it ; dwelling on it, presenting all the documents of it, and as 
it were spreading it over the whole field of his delineation ; as 
if religious heterodoxy had been the grand fact of Sterling's 
life, which even to the Archdeacon's mind it could by no means 
seem to be. Hinc illce lachryma. For the Religious News- 
papers, and Periodical Heresy-hunters, getting very lively in 
those years, were prompt to seize the cue ; and have 'prosecuted 
and perhaps still prosecute it, in their sad way, to all lengths 
and breadths. John Sterling's character and writings, which 
had little business to be spoken of in any Church-court, have 
hereby been carried thither as if for an exclusive trial ; and 
the mournfulest set of pleadings, out of which nothing but a 
misjudgment can be formed, prevail there ever since. The 
noble Sterling, a radiant child of the empyrean, clad in bright 
auroral hues in the memory of all that knew him, — what is he 
doing here in inquisitorial sanbenito, with nothing but ghastly 
spectralities prowling round him, and inarticulately screeching 
and gibbering what they call their judgment on him ! 

' The sin of Hare's Book,' says one of my Correspondents 
in those years, ' is easily defined, and not very condemnable, 

1 John Sterling's Essays and Tales, with Life by Archdeacon Hare, 
Parker; London. 1848. 



INTRODUCTORY. 3 

' but it is nevertheless ruinous to his task as Biographer. He 

* takes up Sterling as a clergyman merely. Sterling, I find, 

* was a curate for exactly eight months ; during eight months 

* and no more had he any special relation to the Church. But 

* he was a man, and had relation to the Universe, for eight- 

* and-thirty years : and it is in this latter character, to which 
' all the others were but features and transitory hues, that we 
« wish to know him. His battle with hereditary Church-for- 

* mulas was severe ; but it was by no means his one battle 
' with things inherited, nor indeed his chief battle ; neither, 

* according to my observation of what it was, is it successfully 
' delineated or summed-up in this Book. The truth is, nobody 
' that had known Sterling would recognise a feature of him 
' here ; you would never dream that this Book treated of him 

* at all. A pale sickly shadow in torn surplice is presented to 
' us here ; weltering bewildered amid heaps of what you call 

* " Hebrew Old-clothes ;" wrestling, with impotent impetuosity, 
' to free itself from the baleful imbroglio, as if that had been 
' its one function in life : who in this miserable figure would 
' recognise the brilliant, beautiful and cheerful John Sterling, 
' with his ever-flowing wealth of ideas, fancies, imaginations ; 

* with his frank affections, inexhaustible hopes, audacities, ac- 

* tivities, and general radiant vivacity of heart and intelligence, 
' which made the presence of him an illumination and inspira- 
' tion wherever he went? It is too bad. Let a man be honestly 
' forgotten when his life ends ; but let him not be misremem- 
' bered in this way. To be hung-up as an ecclesiastical scare- 

* crow, as a target for heterodox and orthodox to practise 
' archery upon, is no fate that can be due to the memory of 
' Sterling. It was not as a ghastly phantasm, choked in Thirty- 
' nine-article controversies, or miserable Semitic, Anti-Semitic 
' street-riots, — in scepticisms, agonised self-seekings, that this 
1 man appeared in life ; nor as such, if the world still wishes 
' to look at him, should you suffer the world's memory of him 
' now to be. Once for all, it is unjust ; emphatically untrue as 
1 an image of John Sterling : perhaps to few men that lived 

* along with him could such an interpretation of their existence 
' be more inapplicable.' 

Whatever truth there might be in these rather passionate 



4 JOHN STERLING. 

representations, and to myself there wanted not a painful feel- 
ing of their truth, it by no means appeared what help or remedy 
any friend of Sterling's, and especially one so related to the 
matter as myself, could attempt in the interim. Perhaps en- 
dure in patience till the dust laid itself again, as all dust does 
if you leave it well alone ? Much obscuration would thus of 
its own accord fall away ; and, in Mr. Hare's narrative itself, 
apart from his commentary, many features of Sterling's true 
character would become decipherable to such as sought them. 
Censure, blame of this Work of Mr. Hare's was naturally far 
from my thoughts. A work which distinguishes itself by human 
piety and candid intelligence ; which, in all details, is careful, 
lucid, exact ; and which offers, as we say, to the observant 
reader that will interpret facts, many traits of Sterling besides 
his heterodoxy. Censure of it, from me especially, is not the 
thing due ; from me a far other thing is due ! — 

On the whole, my private thought was : First, How happy 
it comparatively is, for a man of any earnestness of life, to have 
no Biography written of him ; but to return silently, with his 
small, sorely foiled bit of work, to the Supreme Silences, who 
alone can judge of it or him ; and not to trouble the reviewers, 
and greater or lesser public, with attempting to judge it ! The 
idea of 'fame,' as they call it, posthumous or other, does not 
inspire one with much ecstasy in these points of view. — Se- 
condly, That Sterling's performance and real or seeming im- 
portance in this world was actually not of a kind to demand 
an express Biography, even according to the world's usages. 
His character was not supremely original ; neither was his fate 
in the world wonderful. What he did was inconsiderable 
enough ; and as to what it lay in him to have done, this was 
but a problem, now beyond possibility of settlement. Why had 
a Biography been inflicted on this man ; why had not No- 
biography, and the privilege of all the weary, been his lot ? — 
Thirdly, That such lot, however, could now no longer be my 
good Sterling's ; a tumult having risen around his name, enough 
to impress some pretended likeness of him (about as like as 
the Guy-Fauxes are, on Gunpowder-Day) upon the minds of 
many men : so that he could not be forgotten, and could only 
be misremembered, as matters now stood. 

Whereupon, as practical conclusion to the whole, arose by 



INTRODUCTORY. 5 

degrees this final thought, That, at some calmer season, when 
the theological dust had well fallen, and both the matter itself, 
and my feelings on it, were in a suitabler condition, I ought 
to give my testimony about this friend whom I had known so 
well, and record clearly what my knowledge of him was. This 
has ever since seemed a kind of duty I had to do in the world 
before leaving it. 

And so, having on my hands some leisure at this time, and 
being bound to it by evident considerations, one of which ought 
to be especially sacred to me, I decide to fling down on paper 
some outline of what my recollections and reflections contain in 
reference to this most friendly, bright and beautiful human soul ; 
who walked with me for a season in this world, and remains to 
me very memorable while I continue in it. Gradually, if facts 
simple enough in themselves can be narrated as they came to 
pass, it will be seen what kind of man this was ; to what ex- 
tent condemnable for imaginary heresy and other crimes, to 
what extent laudable and lovable for noble manful orthodoxy 
and other virtues ; — and whether the lesson his life had to teach 
us is not much the reverse of what the Religious Newspapers 
hitherto educe from it. 

Certainly it was not as a ' sceptic' that you could define 
him, whatever his definition might be. Belief, not doubt, at- 
tended him at all points of his progress ; rather a tendency to 
too hasty and headlong belief. Of all men he was the least 
prone to what you could call scepticism : diseased self-listen- 
ings, self-questionings, impotently painful dubitations, all this 
fatal nosology of spiritual maladies, so rife in our day, was emi- 
nently foreign to him. Quite on the other side lay Sterling's 
faults, such as they were. In fact, you could observe, in spite 
of his sleepless intellectual vivacity, he was not properly a 
thinker at all ; his faculties were of the active, not of the pas- 
sive or contemplative sort. A brilliant improvisatore ; rapid 
in thought, in word and in act ; everywhere the promptest and 
least hesitating of men. I likened him often, in my banterings, 
to sheet-lightning ; and reproachfully prayed that he would con- 
centrate himself into a bolt, and rive the mountain-barriers for 
us, instead, of merely playing on them and irradiating them. 

True, he had his « religion' to seek, and painfully shape to- 



6 JOHN STERLING. 

gether for himself, out of the abysses of conflicting disbelief and 
sham-belief and bedlam delusion, now filling the world, as all 
men of reflection have ; and in this respect too, — more especi- 
ally as his lot in the battle appointed for us all was, if you can 
understand it, victory and not defeat, — he is an expressive em- 
blem of his time, and an instruction and possession to his con- 
temporaries. For, I say, it is by no means as a vanquished 
doubter that he figures in the memory of those who knew him ; 
but rather as a victorious believer, and under great difficulties 
a victorious doer. An example to us all, not of lamed misery, 
helpless spiritual bewilderment and sprawling despair, or any 
kind of drownage in the foul welter of our so-called religious 
or other controversies and confusions ; but of a swift and 
valiant vanquisher of all these ; a noble asserter of himself, as 
worker and speaker, in spite of all these. Continually, so far 
as he went, he was a teacher, by act and word, of hope, clear- 
ness, activity, veracity, and human courage and nobleness : the 
preacher of a good gospel to all men, not of a bad to any man. 
The man, whether in priest's cassock or other costume of men, 
who is the enemy or hater of John Sterling, may assure him- 
self that he does not yet know him, — that miserable differences 
of mere costume and dialect still divide him, whatsoever is 
worthy, catholic and perennial in him, from a brother soul who, 
more than most in his day, was his brother and not his adver- 
sary in regard to all that. 

Nor shall the irremediable drawback that Sterling was not 
current in the Newspapers, that he achieved neither what the 
world calls greatness nor what intrinsically is such, altogether 
discourage me. What his natural size, and natural and acci- 
dental limits were, will gradually appear, if my sketching be 
successful. And I have remarked that a true delineation of 
the smallest man, and his scene of pilgrimage through life, is 
capable of interesting the greatest man ; that all men are to an 
unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life a strange emblem 
of every man's ; and that Human Portraits, faithfully drawn, 
are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls. Monitions 
and moralities enough may lie in this small Work, if honestly 
written and honestly read ; — and, in particular, if any image of 
John Sterling and his Pilgrimage through our poor Nineteenth 
Century be one day wanted by the world, and they can find 



BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 7 

some shadow of a true image here, my swift scribbling (which 
shall be very swift and immediate) may prove useful by and by. 



CHAPTER II. 

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 

John Sterling was born at Kaimes Castle, a kind of dila- 
pidated baronial residence to which a small farm was then at- 
tached, rented by his Father, in the Isle of Bute, — on the 20th 
July 1 806. Both his parents were Irish by birth, Scotch by 
extraction ; and became, as he himself did, essentially English 
by long residence and habit. Of John himself Scotland has 
little or nothing to claim except the birth and genealogy, for he 
left it almost before the years of memory ; and in his mature 
days regarded it, if with a little more recognition and intelli- 
gence, yet without more participation in any of its accents out- 
ward or inward, than others natives of Middlesex or Surrey, 
where the scene of his chief education lay. 

The climate of Bute is rainy, soft of temperature ; with skies 
of unusual depth and brilliancy, while the weather is fair. In 
that soft rainy climate, on that wild-wooded rocky coast, with 
its gnarled mountains and green silent valleys, with its seething 
rain-storms and many-sounding seas, was young Sterling ush- 
ered into his first schooling in this world. I remember one 
little anecdote his Father told me of those first years : One of 
the cows had calved ; young John, still in petticoats, was per- 
mitted to go, holding by his father's hand, and look at the 
newly-arrived calf ; a mystery which he surveyed with open in- 
tent eyes, and the silent exercise of all the scientific faculties he 
had ; — very strange mystery indeed, this new arrival, and fresh 
denizen of our Universe : "Wull't eat a-body?" said John in 
his first practical Scotch, inquiring into the tendencies this 
mystery might have to fall upon a little fellow and consume 
him as provision : " Will it eat one, Father ?" — Poor little open- 
eyed John : the family long bantered him with this anecdote ; 
and we, in far other years, laughed heartily on hearing it. — 
Simple peasant labourers, ploughers, house-servants, occasional 
fisher-people too ; and the sight of ships, and crops, and Na- 
ture's doings where Art has little meddled with her : this was 



8 JOHN STERLING. 

the kind of schooling our young friend had, first of all ; on this 
bench of the grand world-school did he sit, for the first four 
years of his life. 

Edward Sterling his Father, a man who subsequently came 
to considerable notice in the world, was originally of Waterford 
in Munster ; son of the Episcopalian Clergyman there ; and 
chief representative of a family of some standing in those parts. 
Family founded, it appears, by a Colonel Robert Sterling, called 
also Sir Robert Sterling ; a Scottish Gustavus-Adolphus soldier, 
whom the breaking-out of the Civil War had recalled from his 
German campaignings, and had before long, though not till 
after some waverings on his part, attached firmly to the Duke 
of Ormond and to the King's Party in that quarrel. A little bit 
of genealogy, since it lies ready to my hand, gathered long ago 
out of wider studies, and pleasantly connects things individual 
and present with the dim universal crowd of things past, — may 
as well be inserted here as thrown away. 

This Colonel Robert designates himself Sterling ' of Glorat;' 
I believe, a younger branch of the well-known Stirlings of Keir 
in Stirlingshire. It appears he prospered in his soldiering and 
other business, in those bad Ormond times ; being a man of 
energy, ardour and intelligence, — probably prompt enough both 
with his word and with his stroke. There survives yet, in the 
Commons Journals, 1 dim notice of his controversies and adven- 
tures ; especially of one controversy he had got into with certain 
victorious Parliamentary official parties, while his own party lay 
vanquished, during what was called the Ormond Cessation, or 
Temporary Peace made by Ormond with the Parliament in 
1646 : — in which controversy Colonel Robert, after repeated 
applications, journeyings to London, attendances upon commit- 
tees, and suchlike, finds himself worsted, declared to be in the 
wrong ; and so vanishes from the Commons Journals. 

What became of him when Cromwell got to Ireland, and to 
Munster, I have not heard : his knighthood, dating from the 
very year of Cromwell's Invasion (1649), indicates a man ex- 
pected to do his best on the occasion : — as in all probability he 
did ; had not Tredah Storm proved ruinous, and the neck of 
this Irish War been broken at once. Doubtless the Colonel Sir 

1 Commons Journals, iv. 15 (10th January 1644-5) ! anc * again, v. 307 
&c., 498 (18th September 1647 — 15th March 1647-8). 



BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 9 

Robert followed or attended his Duke of Ormond into foreign 
parts, and gave-up his management of Munster, while it was 
yet time : for after the Restoration we find him again, safe, and 
as was natural, nourishing with new splendour ; gifted, recom- 
pensed with lands ; — settled, in short, on fair revenues in those 
Munster regions. He appears to have had no children ; but to 
have left his property to William, a younger brother who had 
followed him into Ireland. From this William descends the 
family which, in the years we treat of, had Edward Sterling, 
Father of our John, for its representative. And now enough of 
genealogy. 

Of Edward Sterling, Captain Edward Sterling as his title 
was, who in the latter period of his life became well known in 
London political society, whom indeed all England, with a 
curious mixture of mockery and respect and even fear, knew 
well as "the Thunderer of the Times Newspaper," there were 
much to be said, did the present task and its limits permit. As 
perhaps it might, on certain terms ? What is indispensable let 
us not omit to say. The history of a man's childhood is the 
description of his parents and environment : this is his /parti- 
culate but highly important history, in those first times, while 
of articulate he has yet none. 

Edward- Sterling had now just entered on his thirty-fourth 
year ; and was already a man experienced in fortunes and 
changes. A native of Waterford in Munster, as already men- 
tioned ; born in the 'Deanery House of Waterford, 27th Feb- 
ruary 1773,' say the registers. For his Father, as we learn, 
resided in the Deanery House, though he was not himself Dean, 
but only ' Curate of the Cathedral' (whatever that may mean) ; 
he was withal rector of two other livings, and the Dean's friend, 
— friend indeed of the Dean's kinsmen the Beresfords generally ; 
whose grand house of Curraghmore, near by Waterford, was a 
familiar haunt of his and his children's. This reverend gentle- 
man, along with his three livings and high acquaintanceships, 
had inherited political connexions ; — inherited especially a Go- 
vernment Pension, with survivorship for still one life beyond his 
own ; his father having been Clerk of the Irish House of Com- 
mons at the time of the Union, of which office the lost salary 
was compensated in this way. The Pension was of two hundred 



io JOHN STERLING. 

pounds ; and only expired with the life of Edward, John's Father, 
in 1 847. There were, and still are, daughters of the family ; 
but Edward was the only son ; — descended, too, from the Scot- 
tish hero Wallace, as the old gentleman would sometimes ad- 
monish him ; his own wife, Edward's mother, being of that 
name, and boasting herself, as most Scotch Wallaces do, to have 
that blood in her veins. 

This Edward had picked up, at Waterford, and among the 
young Beresfords of Curraghmore and elsewhere, a thoroughly 
Irish form of character : fire and fervour, vitality of all kinds, 
in genial abundance ; but in a much more loquacious, ostenta- 
tious, much louder style than is freely patronised on this side of 
the Channel. Of Irish accent in speech he had entirely divested 
himself, so as not to be traced by any vestige in that respect ; 
but his Irish accent of character, in all manner of other more 
important respects, was very recognisable. An impetuous man, 
full of real energy, and immensely conscious of the same ; who 
transacted everything not with the minimum of fuss and noise, 
but with the maximum : a very Captain Whirlwind, as one was 
tempted to call him. 

In youth, he had studied at Trinity College, Dublin ; visited 
the Inns of Court here, and trained himself for the Irish Bar. 
To the Bar he had been duly called, and was waiting for the 
results, — when, in his twenty-fifth year, the Irish Rebellion 
broke-out ; whereupon the Irish Barristers decided to raise a 
corps of loyal Volunteers, and a complete change introduced 
itself into Edward Sterling's way of life. For, naturally, he had 
joined the array of Volunteers ; — fought, I have heard, ' in three 
actions with the rebels' (Vinegar Hill, for one) ; and doubtless 
fought well : but in the mess-rooms, among the young military 
and civil officials, with all of whom he was a favourite, he had 
acquired a taste for soldier life, and perhaps high hopes of suc- 
ceeding in it : at all events, having a commission in the Lan- 
cashire Militia offered him, he accepted that ; altogether quitted 
the Bar, and became Captain Sterling thenceforth. From the 
Militia, it appears, he had volunteered with his Company into 
the Line ; and, under some disappointments, and official delays 
of expected promotion, was continuing to serve as Captain there, 
* Captain of the Eighth Battalion of Reserve,' say the Military 
Almanacks of 1 803, — in which year the quarters happened to 



BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. n 

be Derry, where new events awaited him. At a ball in Derry 
he met with Miss Hester Coningham, the queen of the scene, 
and of the fair world in Derry at that time. The acquaintance, 
in spite of some opposition, grew with vigour, and rapidly ri- 
pened : and ' at Fehan Church, Diocese of Derry,' where the 
Bride's father had a country-house, 'on Thursday 5th April 
« 1804, Hester Coningham, only daughter of John Coningham, 
' Esq., Merchant in Derry, and of Elizabeth Campbell his wife,' 
was wedded to Captain Sterling ; she happiest to him happiest, 
— as by Nature's kind law it is arranged. 

Mrs. Sterling, even in her later days, had still traces of the 
old beauty : then and always she was a woman of delicate, pious, 
affectionate character ; exemplary as a wife, a mother and a 
friend. A refined female nature ; something tremulous in it, 
timid, and with a certain rural freshness still unweakened by 
long converse with the world. The tall slim figure, always of a 
kind of quaker neatness ; the innocent anxious face, anxious 
bright hazel eyes ; the timid, yet gracefully cordial ways, the 
natural intelligence, instinctive sense and worth, were very cha- 
racteristic. Her voice too ; with its something of soft queru- 
lousness, easily adapting itself to a light thin-flowing style of 
mirth on occasion, was characteristic : she had retained her 
Ulster intonations, and was withal somewhat copious in speech. 
A fine tremulously sensitive nature, strong chiefly on the side of 
the affections, and the graceful insights and activities that de- 
pend on these : — truly a beautiful, much-suffering, much-loving 
house-mother. From her chiefly, as one could discern, John 
Sterling had derived the delicate aroma of his nature, its piety, 
clearness, sincerity ; as from his Father, the ready practical 
gifts, the impetuosities and the audacities, were also (though in 
strange new form) visibly inherited. A man was lucky to have 
such a Mother ; to have such Parents as both his were. 

Meanwhile the new Wife appears to have had, for the pre- 
sent, no marriage-portion ; neither was Edward Sterling rich, — 
according to his own ideas and aims, far from it. Of course he 
soon found that the fluctuating barrack-life, especially with no 
outlooks of speedy promotion, was little suited to his new cir- 
cumstances : but how change it ? His father was now dead ; 
from whom he had inherited the Speaker Pension of two hun- 
dred pounds ; but of available probably little or nothing more. 



12 JOHN STERLING. 

The rents of the small family estate, I suppose, and other pro- 
perty, had gone to portion sisters. Two hundred pounds, and 
the pay of a marching captain : within the limits of that revenue 
all plans of his had to restrict themselves at present. 

He continued for some time longer in the Army ; his wife 
undivided from him by the hardships of that way of life. Their 
first son Anthony (Captain Anthony Sterling, the only child who 
now survives) was born to them in this position, while lying at 
Dundalk, in January 1805. Two months later, some eleven 
months after their marriage, the regiment was broken ; and 
Captain Sterling, declining to serve elsewhere on the terms 
offered, and willingly accepting such decision of his doubts, was 
reduced to half-pay. This was the end of his soldiering : some 
five or six years in all ; from which he had derived for life, 
among other things, a decided military bearing, whereof he was 
rather proud ; an incapacity for practising law ; — and consider- 
able uncertainty as to what his next course of life was now to be. 

For the present, his views lay towards farming : to establish 
himself, if not as country gentleman, which was an unattainable 
ambition, then at least as some kind of gentleman-farmer which 
had a flattering resemblance to that. Kaimes Castle with a 
reasonable extent of land, which, in his inquiries after farms, 
had turned up, was his first place of settlement in this new ca- 
pacity ; and here, for some few months, he had established him- 
self when John his second child was born. This was Captain 
Sterling's first attempt towards a fixed course of life ; not a very 
wise one, I have understood : — yet on the whole, who, then and 
there, could have pointed out to him a wiser ? 

A fixed course of life and activity he could never attain, or 
not till very late ; and this doubtless was among the important 
points of his destiny, and acted both on his own character and 
that of those who had to attend him on his wayfarings. 



CHAPTER III. 

SCHOOLS : LLANBLETHIAN J PARIS ; LONDON. 

Edward Sterling never shone in farming ; indeed I be- 
lieve he never took heartily to it, or tried it except in fits. His 
Bute farm was, at best, a kind of apology for some far different 



SCHOOLS : LLANBLETHIAN. 13 

ideal of a country establishment which could not be realised : 
practically a temporary landing-place from which he could make 
sallies and excursions in search of some more generous field 
of enterprise. Stormy brief efforts at energetic husbandry, at 
agricultural improvement and rapid field-labour, alternated with 
sudden flights to Dublin, to London, whithersoever any flush 
of bright outlook which he could denominate practical, or any 
gleam of hope which his impatient ennui could represent as 
such, allured him. This latter was often enough the case. In 
wet hay-times and harvest-times, the dripping out-door world, 
and lounging in-door one, in the absence of the master, offered 
far from a satisfactory appearance ! Here was, in fact, a man 
much imprisoned ; haunted, I doubt not, by demons enough ; 
though ever brisk and brave withal, — iracund, but cheerfully 
vigorous, opulent in wise or unwise hope. A fiery energetic 
soul consciously and unconsciously storming for deliverance into 
better arenas ; and this in a restless, rapid, impetuous, rather 
than in a strong, silent and deliberate way. 

In rainy Bute and the dilapidated Kaimes Castle, it was 
evident, there lay no Goshen for such a man. The lease, 
originally but for some three years and a half, drawing now to 
a close, he resolved to quit Bute ; had heard, I know not where, 
of an eligible cottage without farm attached, in the pleasant 
little village of Llanblethian close by Cowbridge in Glamorgan- 
shire ; of this he took a lease, and thither with his family he 
moved in search of new fortunes. Glamorganshire was at least 
a better climate than Bute ; no groups of idle or of busy reapers 
could here stand waiting on the guidance of a master, for there 
was no farm here ; — and among its other and probably its chief 
though secret advantages, Llanblethian was much more conve- 
nient both for Dublin and London than Kaimes Castle had been. 

The removal thither took place in the autumn of 1 809. 
Chief part of the journey (perhaps from Greenock to Swansea 
or Bristol) was by sea : John, just turned of three years, could 
in aftertimes remember nothing of this voyage ; Anthony, some 
eighteen months older, has still a vivid recollection of the gray 
splashing tumult, and dim sorrow, uncertainty, regret and dis- 
tress he underwent : to him a ' dissolving-view' which not only 
left its effect on the plate (as all views and dissolving-views 
doubtless do on that kind of ' plate'), hv* remained consciously 



\ 



\ 



14 JOHN STERLING. 

present there. John, in the close of his twenty-first year, pro- 
fesses not to remember anything whatever of Bute ; his whole 
existence, in that earliest scene of it, had faded away from him : 
Bute also, with its shaggy mountains, moaning woods, and sum- 
mer and winter seas, had been wholly a dissolving-view for 
him, and had left no conscious impression, but only, like this 
voyage, an effect. 

Llanblethian hangs pleasantly, with its white cottages, and 
orchard and other trees, on the western slope of a green hill ; 
looking far and wide over green meadows and little or bigger 
hills, in the pleasant plain of Glamorgan ; a short mile to the 
south of Cowbridge, to which smart little town it is properly a 
kind of suburb. Plain of Glamorgan, some ten miles wide and 
thirty or forty long, which they call the Vale of Glamorgan ; — 
though properly it is not quite a Vale, there being only one 
range of mountains to it, if even one : certainly the central 
Mountains of Wales do gradually rise, in a miscellaneous man- 
ner, on the north side of it ; but on the south are no moun- 
tains, not even land, only the Bristol Channel, and far off, the 
Hills of Devonshire, for boundary, — the " English Hills," as 
the natives call them, visible from every eminence in those 
parts. On such wide terms is it called Vale of Glamorgan. 
But called by whatever name, it is a most pleasant fruitful re- 
gion : kind to the native, interesting to the visitor. A waving 
grassy region ; cut with innumerable ragged lanes ; dotted with 
sleepy unswept human hamlets, old ruinous castles with their 
ivy and their daws, gray sleepy churches with their ditto ditto : 
for ivy everywhere abounds ; and generally a rank fragrant 
vegetation clothes all things ; hanging, in rude many-coloured 
festoons and fringed odoriferous tapestries, on your right and 
on your left, in every lane. A country kinder to the sluggard 
husbandman than any I have ever seen. For it lies all on 
limestone, needs no draining ; the soil, everywhere of hand- 
some depth and finest quality, will grow good crops for you with 
the most imperfect tilling. At a safe distance of a day's riding 
lie the tartarean copperforges of Swansea, the tartarean iron- 
forges of Merthyr ; their sooty battle far away, and not, at such 
safe distance, a defilement to the face of the earth and sky, but 
rather an encouragement to the earth at least ; encouraging the 
husbandman to plough better, if he only would. 



SCHOOLS : LLANBLETHIAN. 15 

The peasantry seem indolent and stagnant, but peaceable 
and well-provided ; much given to Methodism when they have 
any character; — for the rest, an innocent good-humoured 
people, who all drink home-brewed beer, and have brown loaves 
of the most excellent homebaked bread. The native peasant 
village is not generally beautiful, though it might be, were it 
swept and trimmed ; it gives one rather the idea of sluttish 
stagnancy, — an interesting peep into the Welsh Paradise of 
Sleepy Hollow. Stones, old kettles, naves of wheels, all kinds 
of broken litter, with live pigs and etceteras, lie about the 
street : for, as a rule, no rubbish is removed, but waits patiently 
the action of mere natural chemistry and accident ; if even a 
house is burnt or falls, you will find it there after half a cen- 
tury, only cloaked by the every-ready ivy. Sluggish man seems 
never to have struck a pick into it ; his new hut is built close 
by on ground not encumbered, and the old stones are still left 
lying. 

This is the ordinary Welsh village ; but there are excep- 
tions, where people of more cultivated tastes have been led to 
settle, and Llanblethian is one of the more signal of these. A 
decidedly cheerful group of human homes, the greater part of 
them indeed belonging to persons of refined habits ; trimness, 
shady shelter, whitewash, neither conveniency nor decoration 
has been neglected here. Its effect from the distance on the 
eastward is very pretty : you see it like a little sleeping cataract 
of white houses, with trees overshadowing and fringing it ; and 
there the cataract hangs, and does not rush away from you. 

John Sterling spent his next five years in this locality. He 
did not again see it for a quarter of a century ; but retained, all 
his life, a lively remembrance of it ; and, just in the end of his 
twenty-first year, among his earliest printed pieces, we find an 
elaborate and diffuse description of it and its relations to him, 
— part of which piece, in spite of its otherwise insignificant 
quality, may find place here : 

' The fields on which I first looked, and the sands which 
' were marked by my earliest footsteps, are completely lost to 
' my memory ; and of those ancient walls among which I began 
* to breathe, I retain no recollection more clear than the outlines 

1 of a cloud in a moonless sky. But of L , the village where 

' I afterwards lived, I persuade myself that every line and hue 



16 JOHN STERLING. 

' is more deeply and accurately fixed than those of any spot I 
' have since beheld, even though borne-in upon the heart by the 
' association of the strongest feelings. 

' My home was built upon the slope of a hill, with a little 
' orchard stretching down before it, and a garden rising behind. 
' At a considerable distance beyond and beneath the orchard, 

• a rivulet flowed through meadows and turned a mill ; while, 
' above the garden, the summit of the hill was crowned by a 
' few gray rocks, from which a yew-tree grew, solitary and bare. 
' Extending at each side of the orchard, toward the brook, two 
' scattered patches of cottages lay nestled among their gardens; 
' and beyond this streamlet and the little mill and bridge, an- 
' other slight eminence arose, divided into green fields, tufted 
' and bordered with copsewood, and crested by a ruined castle, 
' contemporary, as was said, with the Conquest. I know not 
' whether these things in truth made-up a prospect of much 
' beauty. Since I was eight years old, I have never seen them ; 

• but I well know that no landscape I have since beheld, no 
' picture of Claude or Salvator, gave me half the impression of 

• living, heartfelt, perfect beauty which fills my mind when I 
' think of that green valley, that sparkling rivulet, that broken 
' fortress of dark antiquity, and that hill with its aged yew and 
' breezy summit, from which I have so often looked over the 
' broad stretch of verdure beneath it, and the country-town, 

• and church-tower, silent and white beyond. 

' In that little town there was, and I believe is, a school 
' where the elements of human knowledge were communicated 
' to me, for some hours of every day, during a considerable time. 
' The path to it lay across the rivulet and past the mill ; from 
' which point we could either journey through the fields below 
' the old castle, and the wood which surrounded it, or along a 
' road at the other side of the ruin, close to the gateway of which 
' it passed. The former track led through two or three beau- 
' tiful fields, the sylvan domain of the keep on one hand, and 
' the brook on the other ; while an oak or two, like giant war- 
' ders advanced from the wood, broke the sunshine of the green 
' with a soft and graceful shadow. How often, on my way to 
' school, have I stopped beneath the tree to collect the fallen 
' acorns ; how often run down to the stream to pluck a branch 

• of the hawthorn which hung over the water ! The road which 



SCHOOLS : LLANBLETHIAN. 17 

* passed the castle joined, beyond these fields, the path which 
' traversed them. It took, I well remember, a certain solemn 
' and mysterious interest from the ruin. The shadow t)f the 
' archway, the discolorisations of time on all the walls, the dim- 
' ness of the little thicket which encircled it, the traditions of its 
' immeasurable age, made St. Ouentin's Castle a wonderful and 
' awful fabric in the imagination of a child ; and long after I 
' last saw its mouldering roughness, I never read of fortresses, 
' or heights, or spectres, or banditti, without connecting them 
' with the one ruin of my childhood. 

' It was close to this spot that one of the few adventures 
' occurred which marked, in my mind, my boyish days with 
' importance. When loitering beyond the castle, on the way 
' to school, with a brother somewhat older than myself, who 
' was uniformly my champion and protector, we espied a round 
' sloe high up in the hedge-row. We determined to obtain it ; 
' and I do not remember whether both of us, or only my 
' brother, climbed the tree. However, when the prize was all- 
' but reached, — and no alchymist ever looked more eagerly for 

* the moment of projection which was to give him immortality 
' and omnipotence, — a gruff voice startled us with an oath, and 
' an order to desist ; and I well recollect looking back, for long 
' after, with terror to the vision of an old and ill-tempered far- 
' mer, armed with a bill-hook, and vowing our decapitation ; 
' nor did I subsequently remember without triumph the elo- 
' quence whereby alone, in my firm belief, my brother and my- 
' self had been rescued from instant death. 

• At the entrance of the little town stood an old gateway, 
' with a pointed arch and decaying battlements. It gave ad- 

* mittance to the street which contained the church, and which 
' terminated in another street, the principal one in the town of 

' C . In this was situated the school to which I daily 

' wended. I cannot now recall to mind the face of its good 
' conductor, nor of any of his scholars ; but I have before me 

* a strong general image of the interior of his establishment. 
' I remember the reverence with which I was wont to carry to 
' his seat a well-thumbed duodecimo, the History of Greece by 
' Oliver Goldsmith. I remember the mental agonies I endured 
' in attempting to master the art and mystery of penmanship ; 
' a craft in which, alas, I remained too short a time under Mr. 

c 



18 JOHN STERLING. 

' R — - — to become as great a proficient as he made his other 
' scholars, and which my awkwardness has prevented me from 
' attaining in any considerable perfection under my various sub- 
4 sequent pedagogues. But that which has left behind it a 
' brilliant trait of light was the exhibition of what are called 
' " Christmas pieces ;" things unknown in aristocratic semi- 
' naries, but constantly used at the comparatively humble 
' academy which supplied the best knowledge of reading, writ- 
4 ing, and arithmetic to be attained in that remote neighbour- 
' hood. 

' The long desks covered from end to end with those painted 
' masterpieces, the Life of Robinson Crusoe, the Hunting of 

* Chevy-Chase, the History of Jack the Giant- Killer, and all the 
' little eager faces and trembling hands bent over these, and 
' filling them up with some choice quotation, sacred or profane ; 
' — no, the galleries of art, the theatrical exhibitions, the re- 
' views and processions, — which are .only not childish because 
' they are practised and admired by men instead of children, — 
' all the pomps and vanities of great cities, have shown me no 

* revelation of glory such as did that crowded school-room the 
' week before the Christmas holidays. But these were the 
'. splendours of life. The truest and the strongest feelings do 
' not connect themselves with any scenes of gorgeous and 
' gaudy magnificence ; they are bound-up in the remembrances 
' of home. 

* The narrow orchard, with its grove of old apple-trees, 
' against one of which I used to lean, and while I brandished a 

* beanstalk, roar out with Fitzjames, 

' ' Come one, come all ; this rock shall fly 
From its firm base as soon as I ! " — 

' while I was ready to squall at the sight of a cur, and run 
' valorously away from a casually approaching cow ; the field 
' close beside it, where I rolled about in summer among the 
' hay ; the brook in which, despite of maid and mother, I waded 
' by the hour ; the garden where I sowed flower-seeds, and 
' then turned up the ground again and planted potatoes, and 
' then rooted-out the potatoes to insert acorns and apple-pips, 
' and at last, as may be supposed, reaped neither roses, nor 
' potatoes, nor oak-trees, nor apples ; the grass-plots on which 



SCHOOLS: LLANBLETHIAN. 19 

' I played among those with whom I never can play nor work 
'again: all these are places and employments, — and, alas, 
' playmates, — such as, if it were worth while to weep at all, it 
' would be worth weeping that I enjoy no longer. 

' I remember the house where I first grew familiar with pea- 
' cocks ; and the mill-stream into which I once fell ; and the 
' religious awe wherewith I heard, in the warm twilight, the 
' psalm-singing around the house of the Methodist miller ; and 
i the door-post against which I discharged my brazen artillery ; 
' I remember the window by which I sat while my mother 
' taught me French ; and the patch of garden which I dug 

' for But her name is best left blank ; it was indeed writ 

' in water. These recollections are to me like the wealth of a 
' departed friend, a mournful treasure. But the public has 
' heard enough of them ; to it they are worthless : they are a 
' coin which only circulates at its true value between the differ- 
1 ent periods of an individual's existence, and good for nothing 
' but to keep-up a commerce between boyhood and manhood. 
' I have for years looked forward to the possibility of visiting 

' L ; but I am told that it is a changed village ; and not only 

' has man been at work, but the old yew on the hill has fallen, 
• and scarcely a low stump remains of the tree which I de- 
' lighted in childhood to think might have furnished bows for 
' the Norman archers.' 1 

In Cowbridge is some kind of free school, or grammar- 
school, of a certain distinction ; and this to Captain Sterling 
was probably a motive for settling in the neighbourhood of it 
with his children. Of this however, as it turned out, there was 
no use made : the Sterling family, during its continuance in 
those parts, did not need more than a primary school. The 
worthy master who presided over these Christmas galas, and 
had the honour to teach John Sterling his reading and writing, 
was an elderly Mr. Reece of Cowbridge, who still (in 1851) 
survives, or lately did ; and is still remembered by his old 
pupils as a worthy, ingenious and kindly man, "who wore drab 
breeches and white stockings." Beyond the Reece sphere of 
tuition John Sterling did not go in this locality. 

In fact the Sterling household was still fluctuating ; the pro- 

1 Literary Chronicle, New Series ; London, Saturday 21st June 1828, 
Art. 11. 



2o JOHN STERLING. 

blem of a task for Edward Sterling's powers, and of anchorage 
for his affairs in any sense, was restlessly struggling to solve 
itself, but was still a good way from being solved. Anthony, 
in revisiting these scenes with John in 1839, mentions going to 
the spot " where we used to stand with our Father, looking out 
for the arrival of the London mail :" a little chink through 
which is disclosed to us a big restless section of a human life. 
The Hill of Welsh Llanblethian, then, is like the mythic Cau- 
casus in its degree (as indeed all hills and habitations where 
men sojourn are) ; and here too, on a small scale, is a Pro- 
metheus Chained ? Edward Sterling, I can well understand, 
was a man to tug at the chains that held him idle in those the 
prime of his years ; and to ask restlessly, yet not in anger 
and remorse, so much as in hope, locomotive speculation, and 
ever-new adventure and attempt, Is there no task nearer my 
own natural size, then ? So he looks out from the Hill-side 
' for the arrival of the London mail ;' thence hurries into Cow- 
bridge to the Post-office ; and has a wide web, of threads and 
gossamers, upon his loom, and many shuttles flying, in this 
world. 

By the Marquis of Bute's appointment he had, very shortly 
after his arrival in that region, become Adjutant of the Glamor- 
ganshire Militia, ' Local Militia,' I suppose ; and was, in this 
way, turning his military capabilities to some use. The office 
involved pretty frequent absences, in Cardiff and elsewhere. 
This doubtless was a welcome outlet, though a small one. He 
had also begun to try writing, especially on public subjects ; a 
much more copious outlet, — which indeed, gradually widening 
itself, became the final solution for him. Of the year 1 8 1 1 we 
have a Pamphlet of his, entitled Military Reform; this is the 
second edition, ' dedicated to the Duke of Kent ;' the first ap- 
pears to have come-out the year before, and had thus attained 
a certain notice, which of course was encouraging. He now 
furthermore opened a correspondence with the Times News- 
paper ; wrote to it, in 1 8 1 2, a series of Letters under the sig- 
nature Vetus : voluntary Letters I suppose, without payment 
or preengagement, one successful Letter calling out another ; 
till Vetus and his doctrines came to be a distinguishable entity, 
and the business amounted to something. Out of my own 
earliest Newspaper reading, I can remember the name Vet its, 



SCHOOLS: PARIS. 21 

as a kind of editorial hacklog on which able-editors were wont 
to chop straw now and then. Nay the Letters were collected 
and reprinted ; both this first series, of 1 8 1 2, and then a second 
of next year : two very thin, very dim-coloured cheap octavos ; 
stray copies of which still exist, and may one day become dis- 
tillable into a drop of History (should such be wanted of our 
poor ' Scavenger Age' in time coming), though the reading of 
them has long ceased in this generation. 2 The first series, we 
perceive, had even gone to a second edition. The tone, wher- 
ever one timidly glances into this extinct cockpit, is trenchant 
and emphatic : the name of Vetus, strenuously fighting there, 
had become considerable in the talking political world ; and, 
no doubt, was especially of mark, as that of a writer who might 
otherwise be important, with the proprietors of the Times. The 
connexion continued : widened and deepened itself, — in a slow 
tentative manner ; passing naturally from voluntary into remu- 
nerated : and indeed proving more and more to be the true 
ultimate arena, and battlefield and seedfield, for the exuberant 
impetuosities and faculties of this man. 

What the Letters of Vetus treated of I do not know ; doubt- 
less they ran upon Napoleon, Catholic Emancipation, true 
methods of national defence, of effective foreign Antigallicism, 
and of domestic ditto ; which formed the staple of editorial 
speculation at that time. I have heard in general that Captain 
Sterling, then and afterwards, advocated « the Marquis of Wel- 
lesley's policy ;' but that also, what it was, I have forgotten, 
and the world has been willing to forget. Enough, the heads 
of the Times establishment, perhaps already the Marquis of 
Wellesley and other important persons, had their eye on this 
writer ; and it began to be surmised by him that here at last 
was the career he had been seeking. 

Accordingly, in 181 4, when victorious Peace unexpectedly 
arrived, and the gates of the Continent after five-and-twenty 
years of fierce closure were suddenly thrown open ; and the 
hearts of all English and European men awoke staggering as 
if from a nightmare suddenly removed, and ran hither and 
thither, — Edward Sterling also determined on a new adventure, 

2 'The Letters of Vetus from March 10th to May 10th, 18 12' (second 
edition, Lon. 1812) : Ditto, 'Part III., with a Preface and Notes' (ibid. 1814). 



22 JOHN STERLING. 

that of crossing to Paris, and trying what might lie in store for 
him. For curiosity, in its idler sense, there was evidently pa- 
bulum enough. But he had hopes moreover of learning much 
that might perhaps avail him afterwards ; — hopes withal, I have 
understood, of getting to be Foreign Correspondent of the Times 
Newspaper, and so adding to his income in the meanwhile. He 
left Llanblethian in May ; dates from Dieppe the 27th of that 
month. He lived in occasional contact with Parisian notabili- 
ties {all of them except Madame de Stael forgotten now), all 
summer, diligently surveying his ground; — returned for his 
family, who were still in Wales but ready to move, in the be- 
ginning of August ; took them immediately across with him ; 
a house in the neighbourhood of Paris, in the pleasant village 
of Passy at once town and country, being now ready ; and so, 
under foreign skies, again set-up his household there. 

Here was a strange new ' school' for our friend John, now in 
his eighth year ! Out of which the little Anthony and he drank 
doubtless at all pores, vigorously as they had done in no school 
before. A change total and immediate. Somniferous green 
Llanblethian has suddenly been blotted out ; presto, here are 
wakeful Passy and the noises of paved Paris instead. Innocent 
ingenious Mr. Reece in drab breeches and white stockings, he 
with his mild Christmas galas and peaceable rules of Dilworth 
and Butterworth, has given place to such a saturnalia of pano- 
ramic, symbolic and other teachers and monitors, addressing- 
all the five senses at once. Who John's express tutors were, 
at Passy, I never heard ; nor indeed, especially in his case, was 
it much worth inquiring. To him and to all of us, the ex- 
pressly appointed schoolmasters and schoolings we get arc as 
nothing, compared with the unappointcd incidental and con- 
tinual ones, whose school-hours are all the days and nights of 
our existence, and whose lessons, noticed or unnoticed, stream-in 
upon us with every breath we draw. Anthony says they attended 
a French school, though only for about three months ; and he 
well remembers the last scene of it, ' the boys shouting Vive 
V Empereur when Napoleon came back.' 

Of John Sterling's express schooling, perhaps the most im- 
portant feature, and by no means a favourable one to him, was 
the excessive fluctuation that prevailed in it. Change of scene, 
change of teacher, both express and implied, was incessant with 



SCHOOLS : LONDON. 23 

him ; and gave his young life a nomadic character, — which 
surely, of all the adventitious tendencies that could have been 
impressed upon him, so volatile, swift and airy a being as him, 
was the one he needed least. His gentle pious-hearted Mother, 
ever watching over him in all outward changes, and assiduously 
keeping human pieties and good affections alive in him, was pro- 
bably the best counteracting element in his lot. And on the 
whole, have we not all to run our chance in that respect ; and 
take, the most victoriously we can, such schooling as pleases 
to be attainable in our year and place ? Not very victoriously, 
the most of us! A wise well -calculated breeding of a young 
genial soul in this world, or, alas, of any young soul in it, lies 
fatally over the horizon in these epochs ! — This French scene 
of things, a grand school of its sort, and also a perpetual 
banquet for the young soul, naturally captivated John Sterling ; 
he said afterwards, ' New things and experiences here were 
' poured upon his mind and sense, not in streams, but in a 
' Niagara cataract. ' This too, however, was but a scene ; lasted 
only some six or seven months ; and in the spring of the next 
year terminated as abruptly as any of the rest could do. 

For, in the spring of the next year, Napoleon abruptly 
emerged from Elba ; and set all the populations of the world 
in motion, in a strange manner ; — set the Sterling household 
afloat, in particular ; the big European tide rushing into all 
smallest creeks, at Passy and elsewhere. In brief, on the 20th 
of March 181 5, the family had to shift, almost to fly, towards 
home and the seacoast ; and for a day or two were under appre- 
hension of being detained and not reaching home. Mrs. Ster- 
ling, with her children and effects, all in one big carriage with 
two horses, made the journey to Dieppe ; in perfect safety, 
though in continual tremor : here they were joined by Captain 
Sterling, who had stayed behind at Paris to see the actual ad- 
vent of Napoleon, and to report what the aspect of affairs was, 
" Downcast looks of citizens, with fierce saturnalian acclaim of 
soldiery :" after which they proceeded together to London with- 
out farther apprehension ; — there to witness, in due time, the 
tarbarrels of Waterloo, and other phenomena that followed. 

Captain Sterling never quitted London as a residence any 
more ; and indeed was never absent from it, except on autumnal 



24 JOHN STERLING. 

or other excursions of a few weeks, till the end of his life. 
Nevertheless his course there was as yet by no means clear ; 
nor had his relations with the heads of the Ti?nes, or with other 
high heads, assumed a form which could be called definite, but 
were hanging as a cloudy maze of possibilities, firm substance 
not yet divided from shadow. It continued so for some years. 
The Sterling household shifted twice or thrice to new streets or 
localities, — Russell Square or Queen Square, Blackfriars Road, 
and longest at the Grove, Blackheath, — before the vapours of 
Wellesley promotions and suchlike slowly sank as useless pre- 
cipitate, and the firm rock, which was definite employment, end- 
ing in lucrative co-proprietorship and more and more important 
connexion with the Times Newspaper, slowly disclosed itself. 

These changes of place naturally brought changes in John 
Sterling's schoolmasters : nor were domestic tragedies wanting, 
still more important to him. New brothers and sisters had 
been born ; two little brothers more, three little sisters he had 
in all ; some of whom came to their eleventh year beside him, 
some passed away in their second or fourth : but from his ninth 
to his sixteenth year they all died; and in 1821 only Anthony 
and John were left. 3 How many tears, and passionate pangs, 
and soft infinite regrets ; such as are appointed to all mortals ! 
In one year, I find, indeed in one half-year, he lost three little 
playmates, two of them within one month. His own age was 
not yet quite twelve. For one of these three, for little Edward, 
his next younger, who died now at the age of nine, Mr. Hare re- 
cords that John copied out, in large school-hand, a History of 
Valentine and Orson, to beguile the poor child's sickness, which 
ended in death soon, leaving a sad cloud on John. 

3 Here, in a Note, is the tragic little Register, with what indications for 
us may lie in it : 

1. Robert Sterling died, 4th June 1815, at Queen Square, in his fourth 

year (John being now nine). 

2. Elizabeth died, 12th March 1818, at Blackfriars Road, in her second 

year. 

3. Edward, 30th March 1818 (same place, same month and year), in his 

ninth. 

4. Hester, 21st July 1818 (three months later), at Blackheath, in her 

eleventh. 

5. Catherine Hester Elizabeth, 16th January 1821, in Seymour Street. 



SCHOOLS : LONDON. 25 

Of his grammar and other schools, which, as I said, are 
hardly worth enumerating in comparison, the most important 
seems to have been a Dr. Burney's at Greenwich ; a large day- 
school and boarding-school, where Anthony and John gave 
their attendance for a year or two (181 8 — '19) from Black- 
heath. 'John frequently did themes for the boys,' says An- 
thony, 'and for myself when I was aground.' His progress in 
all school-learning was certain to be rapid, if he even mode- 
rately took to it. A lean, tallish, loose-made boy of twelve ; 
strange alacrity, rapidity and joyous eagerness looking out of 
his eyes, and of ail his ways and movements. I have a Picture 
of him at this stage ; a little portrait, which carries its verifica- 
tion with it. In manhood too, the chief expression of his eyes 
and physiognomy was what I might call alacrity, cheerful rapid- 
ity. You could see, here looked forth a soul which was winged ; 
which dwelt in hope and action, not in hesitation or fear. An- 
thony says, he was ' an affectionate and gallant kind of boy, 
adventurous and generous, daring to a singular degree.' Apt 
enough withal to be ' petulant now and then ;' on the whole, 
'very self-willed;' doubtless not a little discursive in his 
thoughts and ways, and ' difficult to manage.' 

I rather think Anthony, as the steadier, more substantial 
boy, was the Mother's favourite ; and that John, though the 
quicker and cleverer, perhaps cost her many anxieties. Among 
the Papers given me, is an old browned half-sheet in stiff school 
hand, unpunctuated, occasionally ill spelt, — John Sterling's 
earliest remaining Letter, — which gives record of a crowning 
escapade of his, the first and the last of its kind ; and so may 
be inserted here. A very headlong adventure on the boy's part ; 
so hasty and so futile, at once audacious and impracticable ; 
emblematic of much that befell in the history of the man ! 

• To Mrs. Sterling, Blackheath. 

' 21st September 18 18. 
' Dear Mamma, — I am now at Dover, where I arrived this 
' morning about seven o'clock. When you thought I was going 
' to church, I went down the Kent Road, and walked on till I 
' came to Gravesend, which is upwards of twenty miles from 
' Blackheath ; at about seven o'clock in the evening, without 
' having eat anything the whole time. I applied to an inkeeper 



26 JOHN STERLING. 

' (sic) there, pretending that I had served a haberdasher in 
' London, who left of (sic) business, and turned me away. He 
' believed me ; and got me a passage in the coach here, for I 
' said that I had an Uncle here, and that my Father and Mother 
' were dead ; — when I wandered about the quays for some time, 
'. till I met Captain Keys, whom I asked to give me a passage 
' to Boulogne ; which he promised to do, and took me home 
' to breakfast with him : but Mrs. Keys questioned me a good 
' deal ; when I not being able to make my story good, I was 
* obliged to confess to her that I had run away from you. 
' Captain Keys says that he will keep me at his house till you 
' answer my letter. J. Sterling.' 

Anthony remembers the business well ; but can assign no 
origin to it, — some penalty, indignity or cross put suddenly on 
John, which the hasty John considered unbearable. His Mother's 
inconsolable weeping, and then his own astonishment at such 
a culprit's being forgiven, are all that remain with Anthony. 
The steady historical style of the young runaway of twelve, nar- 
rating merely, not in the least apologising, is also noticeable. 

This was some six months after his little brother Edward's 
death ; three months after that of Hester, his little sister next 
in the family series to him : troubled days for the poor Mother 
in that small household on Blackheath, as there are for mothers 
in so many households in this world ! I have heard that Mrs. 
Sterling passed much of her time alone, at this period. Her 
husband's pursuits, with his Wellesleys and the like, often carry- 
ing him into Town and detaining him late there, she would sit 
among her sleeping children, such of them as death had still 
spared, perhaps thriftily plying her needle, full of mournful 
affectionate night-thoughts, — apprehensive too, in her tremulous 
heart, that the head of the house might have fallen among 
robbers in his way homeward. 

CHAPTER IV. 

UNIVERSITIES I GLASGOW ; CAMBRIDGE. 

At a later stage, John had some instruction from a Dr. 
Waite at Blackheath ; and lastly, the family having now re- 
moved into Town, to Seymour Street in the fashionable region 



UNIVERSITIES : GLASGOW. 27 

there, he ' read for a while with Dr. Trollope, Master of Christ's 
Hospital ;' which ended his school history. 

In this his ever-changing course, from Reece at Cowbridge 
to Trollope in Christ's, which was passed so nomadically, under 
ferulas of various colour, the boy had, on the whole, snatched 
successfully a fair share of what was going. Competent skill 
in construing Latin, I think also an elementary knowledge of 
Greek ; add ciphering to a small extent, Euclid perhaps in a 
rather imaginary condition ; a swift but not very legible or 
handsome penmanship, and the copious prompt habit of em- 
ploying it in all manner of unconscious English prose compo- 
sition, or even occasionally in verse itself : this, or something 
like this, he had gained from his grammar-schools : this is the 
most of what they offer to the poor young soul in general, in 
these indigent times. The express schoolmaster is not equal 
to much at present, — while the ^express, for good or for evil, 
is so busy with a poor little fellow ! Other departments of 
schooling had been infinitely more productive, for our young 
friend, than the gerundgrinding one. A voracious reader I be- 
lieve he all along was, — had ' read the whole Edinburgh Review' 
in these boyish years, and out of the circulating libraries one 
knows not what cartloads ; wading like Ulysses towards his 
palace 'through infinite dung.' A voracious observer and par- 
ticipator in all things he likewise all along was ; and had had 
his sights, and reflections, and sorrows and adventures, from 
Kaimes Castle onward, — and had gone at least to Dover on 
his own score. Puer bonce sftei, as the school-albums say ; a 
boy of whom much may be hoped ? Surely, in many senses, 
yes. A frank veracity is in him, truth and courage, as the basis 
of all; and of wild gifts and graces there is abundance. I figure 
him a brilliant, swift, voluble, affectionate and pleasant crea- 
ture ; out of whom, if it were not that symptoms of delicate 
health already show themselves, great things might be made. 
Promotions at least, especially in this country and epoch of 
parliaments and eloquent palavers, are surely very possible for 
such a one ! 

Being now turned of sixteen, and the family economics get- 
ting yearly more propitious and flourishing, he, as his brother 
had already been, was sent to Glasgow University, in which 



28 JOHN STERLING. 

city their Mother had connexions. His brother and he were 
now all that remained of the young family ; much attached to 
one another in their College years as afterwards. Glasgow, 
however, was not properly their College scene : here, except 
that they had some tuition from Mr. Jacobson, then a senior 
fellow student, now (i 85 1) the learned editor of St. Basil, and 
Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford, who continued ever 
afterwards a valued intimate of John's, I find nothing special 
recorded of them. The Glasgow curriculum, for John especially, 
lasted but one year ; who, after some farther tutorage from 
Mr. Jacobson or Dr. Trollope, was appointed for a more ambi- 
tious sphere of education. 

In the beginning of his nineteenth year, ' in the autumn of 
1824,' he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. His brother 
Anthony, who had already been there a year, had just quitted 
this Establishment, and entered on a military life under good 
omens ; I think, at Dublin under the Lord Lieutenant's patron- 
age, to whose service he was, in some capacity, attached. The 
two brothers, ever in company hitherto, parted roads at this 
point; and, except on holiday visits and by frequent correspond- 
ence, did not again live together ; but they continued in a true 
fraternal attachment while life lasted, and I believe never had 
any even temporary estrangement, or on either side a cause for 
such. The family, as I said, was now, for the last three years, 
reduced to these two ; the rest of the young ones, with their 
laughter and their sorrows, all gone. The parents otherwise 
were prosperous in outward circumstances ; the Father's position 
more and more developing itself into affluent security, an agree- 
able circle of acquaintance, and a certain real influence, though 
of a peculiar sort, according to his gifts for work in this world. 

Sterling's Tutor at Trinity College was Julius Hare, now 
the distinguished Archdeacon of Lewes : — who soon conceived 
a great esteem for him, and continued ever afterwards, in looser 
or closer connexion, his loved and loving friend. As the Bio- 
graphical and Editorial work above alluded to abundantly 
evinces. Mr. Hare celebrates the wonderful and beautiful gifts, 
the sparkling ingenuity, ready logic, eloquent utterance, and 
noble generosities and pieties oi his pupil ; — records in parti- 
cular how once, on a sudden alarm oi fire in some neighbour- 



UNIVERSITIES : CAMBRIDGE. 29 

ing College edifice while his lecture was proceeding, all hands 
rushed out to help ; how the undergraduates instantly formed 
themselves in lines from the fire to the river, and in swift con- 
tinuance kept passing buckets as was needful, till the enemy- 
was visibly fast yielding, — when Mr. Hare, going along the 
line, was astonished to find Sterling at the river-end of it, stand- 
ing up to his waist in water, deftly dealing with the buckets as 
they came and went. You in the river, Sterling; you with your 
coughs, and dangerous tendencies of health ! — "Somebody 
" must be in it," answered Sterling; "why not I, as well as 
" another ?" Sterling's friends may remember many traits of 
that kind. The swiftest in all things, he was apt to be found 
at the head of the column, whithersoever the inarch might be ; 
if towards any brunt of danger, there was he surest to be at the 
head ; and of himself and his peculiar risks or impediments 
he was negligent at all times, even to an excessive and plainly 
unreasonable degree. 

Mr. Hare justly refuses him the character of an exact 
scholar, or technical proficient at any time in either of the 
ancient literatures. But he freely read in Greek and Latin, 
as in various modern languages ; and in all fields, in the 
classical as well, his lively faculty of recognition and assimi- 
lation had given him large booty in proportion to his labour. 
One cannot under any circumstances conceive of Sterling as a 
steady dictionary philologue, historian, or archaeologist ; nor 
did he here, nor could he ( well, attempt that course. At the 
same time, Greek and the Greeks being here before him, he 
could not fail to gather somewhat from it, to take some hue 
and shape from it. Accordingly there is, to a singular extent, 
especially in his early writings, a certain tinge of Grecism and 
Heathen Classicality traceable in him ; — Classicality, indeed, 
which does not satisfy one's sense as real or truly living, but 
which glitters with a certain genial, if perhaps almost meretri- 
cious \i.2Xi-japannish splendour, — greatly distinguishable from 
mere gerundgrinding, and death in longs and shorts. If. Classi- 
cality mean the practical conception, or attempt to conceive, 
what human life was in the epoch called classical, — perhaps 
few or none of Sterling's contemporaries in that Cambridge 
establishment carried away more of available Classicality than 
even he. 



30 JOHN STERLING. 

But here, as in his former schools, his studies and in- 
quiries, diligently prosecuted I believe, were of the most dis- 
cursive wide-flowing character ; not steadily advancing along 
beaten roads towards College honours, but pulsing out with 
impetuous irregularity now on this tract, now on that towards 
whatever spiritual Delphi might promise to unfold the mystery 
of this world, and announce to him what was, in our new day, 
the authentic message of the gods. His speculations, readings, 
inferences, glances and conclusions were doubtless sufficiently 
encyclopedic ; his grand tutors the multifarious set of Books 
he devoured. And perhaps, — as is the singular case in most 
schools and educational establishments of this unexampled epoch, 
— it was not the express set of arrangements in this or any 
extant University that could essentially forward him, but only 
the implied and silent ones ; less in the prescribed ' course of 
study,' which seems to tend nowhither, than, — if you will con- 
sider it, — in the generous (not ungenerous) rebellion against 
said prescribed course, and the voluntary spirit of endeavour 
and adventure excited thereby, does help lie for a brave youth 
in such places. Curious to consider. The fagging, the illicit 
boating, and the things forbidden by the schoolmaster, — these, 
I often notice in my Eton acquaintances, are the things that 
have done them good ; these, and not their inconsiderable or 
considerable knowledge of the Greek accidence almost at all ! 
What is Greek accidence, compared to Spartan discipline, if 
it can be had ? That latter is a peal and grand attainment. 
Certainly, if rebellion is unfortunately needful, and you can 
rebel in a generous manner, several things may be acquired in 
that operation, — rigorous mutual fidelity, reticence, steadfast- 
ness, mild stoicism, and other virtues far transcending your 
Greek accidence. Nor can the unwisest ' prescribed course of 
study' be considered quite useless, if it have incited you to try 
nobly on all sides for a course of your own. A singular condi- 
tion of Schools and High-schools, which have come down, in 
their strange old clothes and 'courses of study,' from the 
monkish ages into this highly unmonkish one ; — tragical condi- 
tion, at which the intelligent observer makes deep pause ! 

One benefit, not to be dissevered from the most obsolete 
University still frequented by young ingenuous living souls, is 
that of manifold collision and communication with the said 



UNIVERSITIES: CAMBRIDGE. 31 

young souls ; which, to every one of these coevals, is undoubt- 
edly the most important branch of breeding for him. In this 
point, as the learned Huber has insisted, 1 the two English 
Universities, — their studies otherwise being granted to be nearly- 
useless, and even ill done of their kind, — far excel all other 
Universities : so valuable are the rules of human behaviour 
which from of old have tacitly established themselves there ; so 
manful, with all its sad drawbacks, is the style of English cha- 
racter, 'frank, simple, rugged and yet courteous,' which has 
tacitly but imperatively got itself sanctioned and prescribed 
there. Such, in full sight of Continental and other Universi- 
ties, is Huber's opinion. Alas, the question of University Re- 
form goes deep at present ; deep as the world; — and the real 
University of these new epochs is yet a great way from us ! 
Another judge in whom I have confidence declares further, 
That, of these two Universities, Cambridge is decidedly the 
more catholic (not Roman catholic, but Human catholic) in its 
tendencies and habitudes ; and that in fact, of all the miserable 
Schools and High-schools in the England of these years, he, if re- 
duced to choose from them, would choose Cambridge as a place 
of culture for the young idea. So that, in these bad circum- 
stances, Sterling had perhaps rather made a hit than otherwise? 

Sterling at Cambridge had undoubtedly a wide and rather 
genial circle of comrades ; and could not fail to be regarded and 
beloved by many of them. Their life seems to have been an 
ardently speculating and talking one ; by no means excessively 
restrained within limits ; and, in the more adventurous heads 
like Sterling's, decidedly tending towards the latitudinarian in 
most things. They had among them a Debating Society called 
The Union; where on stated evenings was much logic, and 
other spiritual fencing and ingenuous collision, — probably of a 
really superior quality in that kind ; for not a few of the then 
disputants have since proved themselves men of parts, and at- 
tained distinction in the intellectual walks of life. Frederic 
Maurice, Richard Trench, John Kemble, Spedding, Venables, 
Charles Buller, Richard Milnes and others : — I have heard that 
in speaking and arguing, Sterling was the acknowledged chief 
in this Union Club ; and that ' none even came near him, 
1 History of the English Universities. (Translated from the German.) 



32 JOHN STERLING. 

except the late Charles Buller,' whose distinction in this and 
higher respects was also already notable. . 

The questions agitated seem occasionally to have touched 
on the political department, and even on the ecclesiastical. I 
have heard one trait of Sterling's eloquence, which survived on 
the wings of grinning rumour, and had evidently borne upon 
Church Conservatism in some form : " Have they not," — or 
perhaps it was, Has she (the Church) not,—" a black dragoon 
" in every parish, on good pay and rations, horse-meat and 
" man's-meat, to patrol and battle for these things?" The 
' black dragoon,' which naturally at the moment ruffled the 
general young imagination into stormy laughter, points towards 
important conclusions in respect to Sterling at this time. I 
conclude he had, with his usual alacrity and impetuous daring, 
frankly adopted the anti-superstitious side of things ; and stood 
scornfully prepared to repel all aggressions or pretensions from 
the opposite quarter. In short, that he was already, what after- 
wards there is no doubt about his being, at all points a Radical, 
as the name or nickname then went. In other words, a young 
ardent soul looking with hope and joy into a world which was 
infinitely beautiful to him, though overhung with falsities and 
foul cobwebs as world never was before ; overloaded, over- 
clouded, to the zenith and the nadir of it, by incredible uncre- 
dited traditions, solemnly sordid hypocrisies, and beggarly de- 
liriums old and new ; which latter class of objects it was clearly 
the part of every noble heart to expend all its lightnings and 
energies in burning-up without delay, and sweeping into their 
native Chaos out of such a Cosmos as this. Which process, it 
did not. then seem to him could be very difficult; or attended 
with much other than heroic joy, and enthusiasm of victory or 
of battle, to the gallant operator, in his part of it. This was, 
with modifications such as might be, the humour and creed of 
College Radicalism five-and-twenty years ago. Rather horrible 
at that time ; seen to be not so horrible now, at least to have 
grown very universal, and to need no concealment now. The 
natural humour and attitude, we may well regret to say, — and 
honourable not dishonourable, for a brave young soul such as 
Sterling's, in those years in those localities ! 

I do not find that Sterling had, at that stage, adopted the 
then prevalent Utilitarian theory of human things. But neither, 



A PROFESSION. 33 

apparently, had he rejected it ; still less did he yet at all de- 
nounce it with the damnatory vehemence we were used to in 
him at a later period. Probably he, so much occupied with the 
negative side of things, had not yet thought seriously of any 
positive basis for his world ; or asked himself, too earnestly, 
What, then, is the noble rule of living for a man ? In this 
world so eclipsed and scandalously overhung with fable and 
hypocrisy, what is the eternal fact, on which a man may front 
the Destinies and the Immensities ? The day for such ques- 
tions, sure enough to come in his case, was still but coming. 
Sufficient for this day be the work thereof; that of blasting into 
merited annihilation the innumerable and immeasurable recog- 
nised deliriums, and extirpating or coercing to the due pitch 
those legions of 'black dragoons,' of all varieties and purposes, 
who patrol, with horse-meat and man's-meat, this afflicted earth, 
so hugely to the detriment of it. 

Sterling, it appears, after above a year of Trinity College, 
followed his friend Maurice into Trinity Hall, with the intention 
of taking a degree in Lav/ ; which intention, like many others 
with him, came to nothing; and in 1827 he left Trinity Hall 
and Cambridge altogether; here ending, after two years, his 
brief University life. 

CHAPTER V. 

A PROFESSION. 

Here, then, is a young soul, brought to the years of legal 
majority, furnished from his training-schools with such and such 
shining capabilities, and ushered on the scene of things, to in- 
quire practically, What he will do there ? Piety is in the man, 
noble human valour, bright intelligence, ardent proud veracity ; 
light and fire, in none of their many senses, wanting for him, 
but abundantly bestowed : a kingly kind of man; — whose 'king- 
dom, ' however, in this bewildered place and epoch of the world 
will probably be difficult to find and conquer ! 

For, alas, the world, as we said, already stands convicted 
to this young soul of being an untrue, unblessed world ; its high 
dignitaries many of them phantasms and players'-masks ; its 

D 



34 JOHN STERLING. 

worthships and worships unworshipful : from Dan to Beersheba, 
a mad world, my masters. And surely we may say, and none 
will now gainsay, this his idea of the world at that epoch was 
nearer to the fact than at most other epochs it has been. Truly, 
in all times and places, the young ardent soul that enters on this 
world with heroic purpose, with veracious insight, and the yet 
unclouded 'inspiration of the Almighty' which has given us our 
intelligence, will find this world a very mad one : why else is 
he, with his little outfit of heroisms and inspirations, come hither 
into it, except to make it diligently a little saner? Of him there 
would have been no need, had it been quite sane. This is true ; 
tifis will, in all centuries and countries, be true. 

And yet perhaps of no time or country, for the last two 
thousand years, was it so true as here in this waste-weltering 
epoch of Sterling's and ours. A world all rocking and plung- 
ing, like that old Roman one when the measure of its iniquities 
was full ; the abysses, and subterranean and supernal deluges, 
plainly broken loose ; in the wild dim-lighted chaos all stars of 
Heaven gone out. No star of Heaven visible, hardly now to 
any man ; the pestiferous fogs, and foul exhalations grown con- 
tinual, have, except on the highest mountain-tops, blotted-out 
all stars : will-o'-wisps, of various course and colour, take the 
place of stars. Over the wild-surging chaos, in the leaden air, 
are only sudden glares of revolutionary lightning ; then mere 
darkness, with philanthropistic phosphorescences, empty mete- 
oric lights ; here and there an ecclesiastical luminary still hover- 
ing, hanging on to its old quaking fixtures, pretending still to 
be a Moon or Sun, — though visibly it is but a Chinese Lantern 
made of paper mainly, with candle-end foully dying in the heart 
of it. Surely as mad a world as you could wish ! 

If you want to make sudden fortunes in it, and achieve the 
temporary hallelujah of flunkies for yourself, renouncing the 
perennial esteem of wise men ; if you can believe that the chief 
end of man is to collect about him a bigger heap of gold than 
ever before, in a shorter time than ever before, you will find it 
a most handy and everyway furthersome, blessed and felicitous 
world. But for any other human aim, I think you will find it 
not furthersome. If you in any way ask practically, How a 
noble life is to be led in it ? you will be luckier than Sterling 
or I if you get any credible answer, or find any made road 



A PROFESSION. 35 

whatever. Alas, it is even so. Your heart's question, if it be of 
that sort, most things and persons will answer with a " Non- 
sense ! Noble life is in Drury Lane, and wears yellow boots. 
You fool, compose yourself to your pudding!" — Surely, in these 
times, if ever in any, the young heroic soul entering on life, so 
opulent, full of sunny hope, of noble valour and divine inten- 
tion, is tragical as well as beautiful to us. 

Of the three learned Professions none offered any likelihood 
for Sterling. From the Church his notions of the ' black dra- 
goon,' had there been no other obstacle, were sufficient to 
exclude him. Law he had just renounced, his own Radical 
philosophies disheartening him, in face of the ponderous im- 
pediments, continual uphill struggles and formidable toils in- 
herent in such a pursuit : with Medicine he had never been in 
any contiguity, that he should dream of it as a course for him. 
Clearly enough the professions were unsuitable ; they to him, 
he to them. Professions, built so largely on speciosity instead 
of performance ; clogged, in this bad epoch, and defaced under 
such suspicions of fatal imposture, were hateful not lovable to 
the young radical soul, scornful of gross profit, and intent on 
ideals and human noblenesses. Again, the professions, were 
they never so perfect and veracious, will require slow steady 
pulling, to which this individual young radical, with his swift, 
far-darting brilliances, and nomadic desultory ways, is of all 
men the most averse and unfitted. No profession could, in any 
case, have well gained the early love of Sterling. And perhaps 
withal the most tragic element of his life is even this, That there 
now was none to which he could fitly, by those wiser than him- 
self, have been bound and constrained, that he might learn to 
love it. So swift, light-limbed and fiery an Arab courser ought, 
for all manner of reasons, to have been trained to saddle and 
harness. Roaming at full gallop over the heaths, — especially 
when your heath was London, and English and European life, 
in the nineteenth century, — he suffered much, and did "com- 
paratively little. I have known few creatures whom it was more 
wasteful to send forth with the bridle thrown up, and to set to 
steeple-hunting instead of running on highways ! But it is the 
lot of many such, in this dislocated time, — Heaven mend it! In 
a better time there will be other ' professions' than those three 



36 JOHN STERLING. 

extremely cramp, confused and indeed almost obsolete ones : 
professions, if possible, that are true, and do not require you at 
the threshold to constitute yourself an impostor. Human asso- 
ciation, — which will mean discipline, vigorous wise subordination 
and coordination, — is so unspeakably important. Professions, 
' regimented human pursuits, ' how many of honourable and 
manful might be possible for men ; and which should not, in 
their results to society, need to stumble along, in such an un- 
wieldy futile manner, with legs swollen into such enormous 
elephantiasis and no go at all in them ! Men will one day think 
of the force they squander in every generation, and the fatal 
damage they encounter, by this neglect. 

' The career likeliest for Sterling, in his and the world's cir- 
cumstances, would have been what is called public life : some 
secretarial, diplomatic or other official training, to issue if pos- 
sible in Parliament as the true field for him. And here, beyond 
question, had the gross material conditions been allowed, his 
spiritual capabilities were first-rate. In any arena where elo- 
quence and argument was the point, this man was calculated to 
have borne the bell from all competitors. In lucid ingenious 
talk and logic, in all manner of brilliant utterance and tongue- 
fence, I have hardly known his fellow. So ready lay his store of 
knowledge round him, so perfect was his ready utterance of the 
same, — in coruscating wit, in jocund drollery, in compact articu- 
lated clearness or high poignant emphasis, as the case required, 
— he was a match for any man in argument before a crowd of 
men. One of the most supple-wristed, dextrous, graceful and 
successful fencers in that kind. A man, as Mr. Hare has said, 
' able to argue with four or five at once ;' could do the parrying 
all round, in a succession swift as light, and plant his hits 
wherever a chance offered. In Parliament, such a soul put 
into a body of the due toughness might have carried it far. If 
ours is to be called, as I hear some call it, the Talking Era, 
Sterling of all men had the talent to excel in it. 

Probably it was with some vague view towards chances in 
this direction that Sterling's first engagement was entered upon ; 
a brief connexion as Secretary to some Club or Association 
into which certain public men, of the reforming sort, Mr. Craw- 
ford (the Oriental Diplomatist and Writer), Mr. Kirkman Fin- 



A PROFESSION. 37 

lay (then Member for Glasgow), and other political notabilities 
had now formed themselves, — with what specific objects I do 
not know, nor with what result if any. I have heard vaguely, 
it was ' to open the trade to India.' ,Qf course they intended to 
stir-up the public mind into cooperation, whatever their goal or 
object was : Mr. Crawford, an intimate in the Sterling house- 
hold, recognised the fine literary gift of John; and might think 
it a lucky hit that he had caught such a Secretary for three 
hundred pounds a year. That was the salary agreed upon ; and 
for some months actually worked for and paid ; Sterling be- 
coming for the time an intimate and almost an inmate in Mr. 
Crawford's circle, doubtless not without results to himself be- 
yond the secretarial work and pounds sterling : so much is cer- 
tain. But neither the Secretaryship nor the Association itself 
had any continuance; nor can I now learn accurately more of it 
than what is here stated ; — in which vague state it must vanish 
from Sterling's history again, as it in great measure did from 
his life. From himself in after-years I never heard mention of 
it ; nor were his pursuits connected afterwards with those of 
Mr. Crawford, though the mutual goodwill continued unbroken. 
In fact, however splendid and indubitable Sterling's quali- 
fications for a parliamentary life, there was that in him withal 
which flatly put a negative on any such project. He had not 
the slow steady-pulling diligence which is indispensable in that, 
as in all important pursuits and strenuous human competitions 
whatsoever. In every sense, his momentum depended on velo- 
city of stroke, rather than on weight of metal ; " beautifulest 
sheet -lightning," as I often said, "not to be condensed into 
thunderbolts." Add to this, — what indeed is perhaps but the 
same phenomenon in another form, — his bodily frame was thin, 
excitable, already manifesting pulmonary symptoms ; a body 
which the tear and wear of Parliament would infallibly in few 
months have wrecked and ended. By this path there was 
clearly no mounting. The far-darting, restlessly coruscating 
soul, equipt beyond all others to shine in the Talking Era, and 
lead National Palavers with their spolia opima captive, is im- 
prisoned in a fragile hectic body which quite forbids the adven- 
ture. ' Es ist dafiir gesorgt,' says Goethe, * Provision has been 
made that the trees do not grow into the sky ;' — means are 
always there to stop them short of the sky. 



38 JOHN STERLING. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LITERATURE : THE ATHENiEUM. 

Of all forms of public life, in the Talking Era, it was clear 
that only one completely suited Sterling, — the anarchic, noma- 
dic, entirely aerial and unconditional one, called Literature. To 
this all his tendencies, and fine gifts positive and negative, 
were evidently pointing ; and here, after such brief attempting 
or thoughts to attempt at other posts, he already in this same 
year arrives. As many do, and ever more must do, in these 
our years and times. This is the chaotic haven of so many 
frustrate activities ; where all manner of good gifts go up in 
far-seen smoke or conflagration ; and whole fleets, that might 
have been war-fleets to conquer kingdoms, are consumed (too 
truly, often), amid 'fame' enough, and the admiring shouts of 
the vulgar, which is always fond to see fire going on. The true 
Canaan and Mount Zion of a Talking Era must ever be Litera- 
ture : the extraneous, miscellaneous, self-elected, indescribable 
Parliamentum, or Talking Apparatus, which talks by books and 
printed papers. 

A literary Newspaper called The Athenceum, the same which 
still subsists, had been founded in those years by Mr. Bucking- 
ham; James Silk Buckingham, who has since continued notable 
under various figures. Mr. Buckingham's Athenaum had not 
as yet got into a flourishing condition ; and he was willing to 
sell the copyright of it for a consideration. Perhaps Sterling 
and old Cambridge friends of his had been already writing for 
it. At all events, Sterling, who had already privately begun 
writing a Novel, and was clearly looking towards Literature, 
perceived that his gifted Cambridge friend, Frederic Maurice, 
was now also at large in a somewhat similar situation ; and that 
here was an opening for both of them, and for other gifted 
friends. The copyright was purchased for I know not what 
sum, nor with whose money, but guess it may have been Ster- 
ling's, and no great sum ; — and so, under free auspices, them- 
selves their own captains, Maurice and he spread sail for this 
new voyage of adventure into all the world. It was about the 
end of 1828 that readers of periodical literature, and quidnuncs 
in those departments, began to report the appearance, in a Paper 



LITERATURE : THE ATHENAEUM. 39 

called the Athenceum, of writings showing a superior brilliancy, 
and height of aim ; one or perhaps two slight specimens of 
which came into my own hands, in my remote corner, about 
that time, and were duly recognised by me, while the authors 
were still far off and hidden behind deep veils. 

Some of Sterling's best Papers from the A'thencsu'm have 
been published by Archdeacon Hare : first-fruits by a young 
man of twenty-two ; crude, imperfect, yet singularly beautiful 
and attractive ; which will still testify what high literary promise 
lay in him. The ruddiest glow of young enthusiasm, of noble 
incipient spiritual manhood reigns over them ; once more a di- 
vine Universe unveiling itself in gloom and splendour, in auroral 
fire-light and many-tinted shadow, full of hope and full of awe, 
to a young melodious pious heart just arrived upon it. Often 
enough the delineation has a certain flowing completeness, not 
to be expected from so young ah artist ; here and there is a 
decided felicity of insight; everywhere the point of view adopted 
is a high and noble one, and the result worked-out a result to be 
sympathised with} and accepted so far as it will go. Good read- 
ing still, those Papers, for the less-furnished mind, — thrice-ex- 
cellent reading compared with what is usually going. For the 
rest, a grand melancholy is the prevailing impression they leave ; 
— partly as if, While the surface was so blooming and opulent, 
the heart of them was still vacant, sad and cold. Here is a 
beautiful mirage, in the dry wilderness ; but you cannot quench 
your thirst there ! The writer's heart is indeed still too vacant, 
except of beautiful shadows and reflexes and resonances ; and 
is far from joyful, though it wears commonly a smile. 

In some of the Greek delineations {The Lycian Painter, for 
example), we have already noticed a strange opulence of splen- 
dour, characterisable as half-legitimate, half-meretricious, — a 
splendour hovering between the raffaelesque and the japannish. 
What other things Sterling wrote there, I never knew ; nor would 
he in any mood, in those later days, have told you, had you 
asked. This period of his life he always rather accounted, as 
the Arabs do the idolatrous times before Mahomet's advent, the 
1 period of darkness.' 



4 o JOHN STERLING. 



CHAPTER VII. 

REGENT STREET. 

On the commercial side the Athenaum still lacked success ; 
nor was like to find it under the highly uncommercial manage- 
ment it had now got into. This, by and by, began to be a serious 
consideration. For money is the sinews of Periodical Literature 
almost as much as of war itself ; without money, and under a 
constant drain of loss, Periodical Literature is one of the things 
that cannot be carried on. In no long time Sterling began to 
be practically sensible of this truth, and that an unpleasant re- 
solution in accordance with it would be necessary. By him also, 
after a while, the Athenceum was transferred to other hands, 
better fitted in that respect ; and under these it did take vigorous 
root, and still bears fruit according to its kind. 

For the present, it brought him into the thick of London 
Literature, especially of young London Literature and specula- 
tion ; in which turbid exciting element he swam and revelled, 
nothing loath, for certain months longer, — a period short of 
two years in all. He had lodgings in Regent Street : his Father's 
house, now a nourishing and stirring establishment, in South 
Place, Knightsbridge, where, under the warmth of increasing- 
revenue and success, miscellaneous cheerful socialities and 
abundant speculations, chiefly political (and not John's kind, 
but that of the Times Newspaper and the Clubs), were rife, he 
could visit daily, and yet be master of his own studies and 
pursuits. Maurice, Trench, John Mill, Charles Buller : these, 
and some few others, among a wide circle of a transitory phan- 
tasmal character, whom he speedily forgot and cared not to re- 
member, were much about him ; with these he in all ways 
employed and disported himself: a first favourite with them all. 

No pleasanter companion, I suppose, had any of them. So 
frank, open, guileless, fearless, a brother to all worthy souls 
whatsoever. Come when you might, here is he open-hearted, 
rich in cheerful fancies, in grave logic, in all kinds of bright 
activity. If perceptibly or imperceptibly there is a touch of 
ostentation in him, blame it not ; it is so innocent, so good and 
childlike. He is still fonder of jingling publicly, and spreading 



REGENT STREET. 41 

on the table, your big purse of opulences than his own. Abrupt 
too he is, cares little for big-wigs and garnitures ; perhaps laughs 
more than the real fun he has would order ; but of arrogance 
there is no vestige, of insincerity or of ill-nature none. These 
must have been pleasant evenings in Regent Street, when the 
circle chanced to be well adjusted there. At other times, Phi- 
listines would enter, what we call bores, dullards, Children of 
Darkness ; and then, — except in a hunt of dullards, and a bore- 
baitiiig, which might be permissible, — the evening was dark. 
Sterling, of course, had innumerable cares withal ; and was toil- 
ing like a slave ; his very recreations almost a kind of work. An 
enormous activity was in the man ; — sufficient, in a body that 
could have held it without breaking, to have gone far, even 
under the unstable guidance it was like to have ! 

Thus, too, an extensive, very variegated circle of connexions 
was forming round him. Besides his A theii<zum work, and even- 
ings in Regent Street and elsewhere, he makes visits to coun- 
try-houses, the Bullers' and others ; converses with established 
gentlemen, with honourable women not a few ; is gay and wel- 
come with the young of his own age ; knows also religious, witty, 
and other distinguished ladies, and is admiringly known by them. 
On the whole, he is already locomotive ; visits hither and thither 
in a very rapid flying manner. Thus I find he had made one 
flying visit to the Cumberland Lake-region in 1828, and got 
sight of Wordsworth ; and in the same year another flying one 
to Paris, and seen with no undue enthusiasm the Saint-Simon- 
ian Portent just beginning to preach for itself, and France in 
general simmering under a scum of impieties, levities, Saint- 
Simonisms, and frothy fantasticalities of all kinds, towards the 
boiling-over which soon made the Three Days of July famous. 
But by far the most important foreign home he visited was that 
of Coleridge on the Hill of Highgate, — if it were not rather a 
foreign shrine and Dodona-Oracle, as he then reckoned, — to 
which (onwards from 1828, as would appear) he was already 
an assiduous pilgrim. Concerning whom, and Sterling's all- 
important connexion with him, there will be much to say anon. 

Here, from this period, is a Letter of Sterling's, which the 
glimpses it affords of bright scenes and figures now sunk, so 
many of them, sorrowfully to the realm of shadows, will render 
interesting to some of my readers. To me on the mere Letter, 



42 JOHN STERLING. 

not on its contents alone, there is accidentally a kind of fateful 
stamp. A few months after Charles Buller's death, while his 
loss was mourned by many hearts, and to his poor Mother all 
light except what hung upon his memory had gone-out in the 
world, a certain delicate and friendly hand; hoping to give the 
poor bereaved lady a good moment, sought <#ut this Letter of 
Sterling's, one morning, and called, with intent to read it to 
her : — alas, the poor lady had herself fallen suddenly into the 
languors of death, help of another grander sort now close at 
hand ; and to her this Letter was never read !^ — 

On ' Fanny Kemble,' it appears, there is an Essay by Ster- 
ling in the Atkenceum of this year: '16th December 1829/ 
Very laudatory, I conclude. He much admired her genius, nay 
was thought at one time to be vaguely on the edge of still more 
chivalrous feelings. As the Letter itself may perhaps indicate. 

' To Anthony Sterling, Esq., 24th Regiment, Dublin. 

' Knightsbridge, loth Nov. 1829. 
' My dear Anthony, — Here in the Capital of England and 
1 of Europe, there is less, so far as I hear, of movement and 
' variety than in your provincial Dublin, or among the Wicklow 
' Mountains. We have the old prospect of bricks and smoke, 
' the old crowd of busy stupid faces, the old occupations, the old 
' sleepy amusements ; and the latest news that reaches us daily 
' has an air of tiresome, doting antiquity. The world has no- 
' thing for it but to exclaim with Faust, " Give me my youth 
' again." And as for me, my month of Cornish amusement is 
1 over ; and I must tie myself to my old employments. I have 

• not much to tell you about these ; but perhaps you may like 

♦ to hear of my expedition to the West. 

'* I wrote to Polvellan (Mr. Buller's) to announce the day on 
' which I intended to be there, so shortly before setting-out, that 
' there was no time to receive an answer ; and when I reached 
' Devonport, which is fifteen or sixteen miles from my place of 

* destination) I found a letter from Mrs. Buller, saying that she 
' was coming in two days to a Ball at Plymouth, and if I chose 

• to stay in the meanwhile and look about me, she would take 
' me back with her. She added an introduction to a relation of 

* her husband's, a certain Captain Buller of the Rifles, who was 
' with the Depot there, — a pleasant person, who I believe had 



REGENT STREET. 43 

' been acquainted with Charlotte, 1 or at least had seen her. 

* Under his superintendence' — * * * 

' On leaving Devonport with Mrs. Buller, I went some of 
' the way by water, up the harbour and river ; and the prospects 
' are certainly very beautiful ; to say nothing of the large ships, 

* which I admire almost as much as you, though without know- 
' ing so much about them. There is a great deal of fine scenery 
' all along the road to Looe ; and the House itself, a very un- 

* pretending Gothic cottage, stands beautifully among trees, 
' hills and water, with the sea at the distance of a quarter of a 

* mile. 

'And here, among pleasant, good-natured, well-informed, 
' and clever people, I spent an idle month. I dined at one or 
« two Corporation dinners ; spent a few days at the old Mansion 
' of Mr. Buller of Morval, the patron of West Looe ; and during 
' the rest of the time, read, wrote, played chess, lounged, and 

* ate red mullet (he who has not done this has not begun to 
' live) ; talked of cookery to the philosophers, and of meta- 
' physics to Mrs. Buller; and altogether cultivated indolence, 
' and developed the faculty of nonsense with considerable plea- 
' sure and unexampled success. Charles Buller you know : he 
1 has just come to town, but I have not yet seen him. Arthur, 
' his younger brother, I take to be one of the handsomest men 
' in England; and he too has considerable talent. Mr. Buller 
' the father is rather a clever man of sense, and particularly 

* good-natured and gentlemanly ; and his wife, who was a re- 
' nowned beauty and queen of Calcutta, has still many striking 
1 and delicate traces of what she was. Her conversation is more 
' brilliant and pleasant than that of any One I know ; and, at 
' all events, I am bound to admire her for the kindness with 
' which she patronises me. I hope that, some day or other, you 
' may be acquainted with her. 

' I believe I have seen no one in London about whom you 

* would care to hear, — unless the fame of Fanny Kemble has 
1 passed the Channel, and astonished the Irish Barbarians in 
' the midst of their bloody-minded politics. Young Kemble, 
' whom you have seen, is in Germany : but I have the happi- 

* ness of being also acquainted with his sister, the divine Fanny; 
' and I have seen her twice on the stage, and three or four 

1 Mrs. Anthony Sterling, very lately Miss Charlotte Baird. 



44 JOHN STERLING. 

' times in private, since my return from Cornwall. I had seen 
' some beautiful verses of hers, long before she was an actress ; 
' and her conversation is full of spirit and talent. She never 
' was taught to act at all ; and though there are many faults in 
' her performance of Juliet, there is more power than in any 
1 female playing I ever saw, except Pasta's Medea. She is not 
' handsome, rather short, and by no means delicately formed ; 
' but her face is marked, and the eyes are brilliant, dark, and 
' full of character. She has far more ability than she ever can 
' display on the stage ; but I have no doubt that, by practice 
' and self-culture, she will be a far finer actress at least than 
' anyone since Mrs. Siddons. I was at Charles Kemble's a few 
' evenings ago, when a drawing of Miss Kemble, by Sir Thomas 
' Lawrence, was brought in ; and I have no doubt that you will 
' shortly see, even in Dublin, an engraving of her from it, very 
' unlike the caricatures that have hitherto appeared. I hate the 
' stage ; and but for her, should very likely never have gone to 
' a theatre again. Even as it is, the annoyance is much more 
' than the pleasure ; but I suppose I must go to see her in every 
' character in which she acts. If Charlotte cares for plays, let 
' me know, and I will write in more detail about this new Mel- 
' pomene. I fear there are very few subjects on which I can say 
' anything that will in the least interest her. — Ever affection- 
' ately yours, J. Sterling.' 

Sterling and his circle, as their ardent speculation and acti- 
vity fermented along, were in all things clear for progress, 
liberalism ; their politics, and view of the Universe, decisively 
of the Radical sort. As indeed that of England then was, more 
than ever ; the crust of old hidebound Toryism being now openly 
cracking towards some incurable disruption, which accordingly 
ensued as the Reform Bill before long. The Reform Bill already 
hung in the wind. Old hidebound Toryism, long recognised by 
all the world, and now at last obliged to recognise its very self, 
for an overgrown Imposture, supporting itself not by human 
reason, but by flunky blustering and brazen lying, superadded 
to mere brute force, could be no creed for young Sterling and 
his friends. In all things he and they were liberals, and, as was 
natural at this stage, democrats ; contemplating root-and-branch 
innovation by aid of the hustings and ballot-box. Hustings and 



REGENT STREET. 45 

ballot-box had speedily to vanish out of Sterling's thoughts : but 
the character of root-and-branch innovator, essentially of • Ra- 
dical Reformer,' was indelible with him, and under all forms 
could be traced as his character through life. 

For the present, his and those young people's aim was : By 
democracy, or what means there are, be all impostures put 
down. Speedy end to Superstition, — a gentle one if you can 
contrive it, but an end. What can it profit any mortal to adopt 
locutions and imaginations which do not correspond to fact ; 
which no sane mortal can deliberately adopt in his soul as true ; 
which the most orthodox of mortals can only, and this after in- 
finite essentially impious effort to put-out the eyes of his mind, 
persuade himself to ' believe that he believes' ? Away with it ; 
in the name of God, come out of it, all true men ! 

Piety of heart, a certain reality of religious faith, was al- 
ways Sterling's, the gift of nature to him which he would not 
and could not throw away ; but I find at this time his religion 
is as good as altogether Ethnic, Greekish, what Goethe calls the 
Heathen form of religion.. The Church, with her articles, is 
without relation to him. And along with obsolete spiritualisms, 
he sees all-manner of obsolete thrones and big-wigged tempo- 
ralities ; and for them also can prophesy, and wish, only a 
speedy doom. Doom inevitable, registered in Heaven's Chan- 
cery from the beginning of days, doom unalterable as the pillars 
of the world ; the gods are angry, and all nature groans, till 
this doom of eternal justice be fulfilled. 

With gay audacity, with enthusiasm tempered by mockery, 
as is the manner of young gifted men, this faith, grounded for 
the present on democracy and hustings operations, and giving 
to all life the aspect of a chivalrous battlefield, or almost of a 
gay though perilous tournament, and bout of "A hundred 
knights against all comers," — was maintained by Sterling and 
his friends. And in fine, after whatever loud remonstrances, 
and solemn considerations, and such shaking of our wigs as is 
undoubtedly natural in the case, let us be just to it and him. 
We shall have to admit, nay it will behove us to see and prac- 
tically know, for ourselves and him and others, that the essence 
of this creed, in times like ours, was right and not wrong. That, 
however the ground and form of it might change, essentially 
it was the monition of his natal genius to this as it is to every 



46 JOHN STERLING. 

brave man ; the behest of all his clear insight into this Uni- 
verse, the message of Heaven through him, which he could not 
suppress, but was inspired and compelled to utter in this world 
by such methods as he had. There for him lay the first com- 
mandment ; this is what it would have been the unforgivable sin 
to swerve from and desert : the treason of treasons for him, it 
were there ; compared with which all other sins are venial ! 

The message did not cease at all, as we shall see ; the 
message was ardently, if fitfully, continued to the end : but the 
methods, the tone and dialect and all outer conditions of utter- 
ing it, underwent most important modifications ! 



CHAPTER VIII. 

COLERIDGE. 

Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, 
looking down on London and its smoke -tumult, like a sage 
escaped from the inanity of life's battle ; attracting towards him 
the thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there. 
His express contributions to poetry, philosophy, or any specific 
province of human literature or enlightenment, had been small 
and sadly intermittent ; but he had, especially among young 
inquiring men, a higher than literary, a kind of prophetic or 
magician character. He was thought to hold, he alone in Eng- 
land, the key of German and other Transcendentalisms ; knew 
the sublime secret of believing by ' the reason' what ' the un- 
derstanding' had been obliged to fling out as incredible ; and 
could still, after Hume and Voltaire had done their best and 
worst with him, profess himself an orthodox Christian, and say 
and print to the Church of England, with its singular old rubrics 
and surplices at Allhallowtide, Esto fterpetua. A sublime man ; 
who, alone in those dark days, had saved his crown of spiritual 
manhood ; escaping from the black materialisms, and revolu- 
tionary deluges, with ' God, Freedom, Immortality' still his : a 
king of men. The practical intellects of the world did not much 
heed him, or carelessly reckoned him a metaphysical dreamer : 
but to the rising spirits of the young generation he had this 
dusky sublime character ; and sat there as a kind of Magus, 



COLERIDGE. 47 

girt in mystery and enigma ; his Dodona oak-grove (Mr. Gil- 
man's house at Highgate) whispering strange things, uncertain 
whether oracles or jargon. 

The Gilmans did not encourage much company, or excita- 
tion of any sort, round their sage ; nevertheless access to him, 
if a youth did reverently wish it, was not difficult. He would 
stroll about the pleasant garden with you, sit in the pleasant 
rooms of the place, — perhaps take you to his own peculiar room, 
high up, with a rearward view, which was the chief view of all. 
A really charming outlook, in fine weather. Close at hand, wide 
sweep of flowery leafy gardens, their few houses mostly hidden, 
the very chimney-pots veiled under blossomy umbrage, flowed 
gloriously down hill ; gloriously issuing in wide-tufted undulat- 
ing plain-country, rich in all charms of field and town- Waving 
blooming country of the brightest green ; dotted all over with 
handsome villas, handsome groves ; crossed by roads and human 
traffic, here inaudible or heard only as a musical hum : and be- 
hind all swam, under olive-tinted haze, the illimitable limitary 
ocean of London, with its domes and steeples definite in the 
sun, big Paul's and the many memories attached to it hanging 
high over all. Nowhere, of its kind, could you see a grander 
prospect on a bright summer day, with the set of the air going 
southward, — southward, and so draping with the city-smoke not 
y.ou but the city. Here for hours would Coleridge talk, concern- 
ing all conceivable or inconceivable things ; and liked nothing 
better than to have an intelligent, or failing that, even a silent 
and patient human listener. He distinguished himself to ali 
that ever heard him as at least the most surprising talker ex- 
tant in this world, — and to some small minority, by no means 
to all, as the most excellent. 

The good man, he was now getting old, towards sixty per- 
haps ; and gave you the idea of a life that had been full of 
sufferings ; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming 
painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilderment. 
Brow and head were round, and of massive weight, but the face 
was flabby and irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were 
as full of sorrow as of inspiration ; confused pain looked mildly 
from them, as in a kind of mild astonishment. The whole figure 
and air, good and amiable otherwise, might be called flabby 
and irresolute ; expressive of weakness under possibility of 



48 JOHN STERLING. 

strength. He hung loosely on his limbs, with knees bent, and 
stooping attitude ; in walking, he rather shuffled than decisively 
stept ; and a lady once remarked, he never could fix which side 
of the garden walk would suit him best, but continually shifted, 
in corkscrew fashion, and kept trying both. A heavy-laden, high- 
aspiring and surely much-suffering man. His voice, naturally 
soft and good, had contracted itself into a plaintive snuffle and 
singsong ; he spoke as if preaching, — you would have said, 
preaching earnestly and also hopelessly the weightiest things. 
I still recollect his 'object' and 'subject,' terms of continual 
recurrence in the Kantean province ; and how he sang and 
snuffled them into " om-m-mject" and "sum-m-mject," with a 
kind of solemn shake or quaver, as he rolled along. No talk, 
in his century or in any other, could be more surprising. 

Sterling, who assiduously attended him, with profound re- 
verence, and was often with him by himself, for a good many 
months, gives a record of their first colloquy. 1 Their colloquies 
were numerous, and he had taken note of many ; but they are 
all gone to the fire, except this first, which Mr. Hare has printed, 
— unluckily without date. It contains a number of ingenious, 
true and half-true observations, and is of course a faithful epi- 
tome of the things said ; but it gives small idea of Coleridge's 
way of talking ; — this one feature is perhaps the most recognis- 
able, ' Our interview lasted for three hours, during which he 
talked two hours and three quarters.' Nothing could be more 
copious than his talk ; and furthermore it was always, virtually 
or literally, of the nature of a monologue ; suffering no inter- 
ruption, however reverent ; hastily putting aside all foreign ad- 
ditions, annotations, or most ingenuous desires for elucidation, 
as well-meant superfluities which would never do. Besides, it 
was talk not flowing anywhither like a river, but spreading 
everywhither in inextricable currents and regurgitations like a 
lake or sea ; terribly deficient in definite goal or aim, nay often 
in logical intelligibility ; what you were to believe or do, on any 
earthly or heavenly thing, obstinately refusing to appear from 
it. So that, most times, you felt logically lost ; swamped near 
to drowning in this tide of ingenious vocables, spreading out 
boundless as if to submerge the world. 

To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped into, whether 
1 Biography ; by Hare, pp. xvi.-xxvi. 



COLERIDGE. 49 

you consent or not, can in the long-run be exhilarating to no 
creature ; how eloquent soever the flood of utterance that is de- 
scending. But if it be withal a confused unintelligible flood of 
utterance, threatening to submerge all known landmarks of 
thought, and drown the world and you ! — I have heard Cole- 
ridge talk, with eager musical energy, two stricken hours, his 
face radiant and moist, and communicate no meaning whatso- 
ever to any individual of his hearers, — certain of whom, I for 
one, still kept eagerly listening in hope ; the most had long 
before given up, and formed (if the room were large enough) 
secondary humming groups of their own. He began anywhere; 
you put some question to him, made some suggestive observa- 
tion : instead of answering this, or decidedly setting out towards 
answer of it, he would accumulate formidable apparatus, logical 
swim-bladders, transcendental life-preservers and other precau- 
tionary and vehiculatory gear, for setting out ; perhaps did at 
last get under way, — but was swiftly solicited, turned aside by 
the glance of some radiant new game on this hand or that, into 
new courses ; and ever into new ; and before long into all the 
Universe, where it was uncertain what game you would catch, 
or whether any. 

His talk, alas, was distinguished, like himself, by irresolu- 
tion : it disliked to be troubled with conditions, abstinences, 
definite fulfilments ; — loved to wander at its own sweet will, and 
make its auditor and his claims and humble wishes a mere 
passive bucket for itself ! He had knowledge about many things 
and topics, much curious reading ; but generally all topics led 
him, after a pass or two, into the high seas of theosophic philo- 
sophy, the hazy infinitude of Kantean transcendentalism, with 
its ' sum-m-mjects' and ' om-m-mjects.' Sad enough ; for with 
such indolent impatience of the claims and ignorances of others, 
he had not the least talent for explaining this or anything un- 
known to them ; and you swam and fluttered in the mistiest 
wide unintelligible deluge of things, for most part in a rather 
profitless uncomfortable manner. 

Glorious islets, too, I have seen rise out of the haze ; but 
they were few, and soon swallowed in the general element again. 
Balmy sunny islets, islets of the blest and the intelligible : — on 
which occasions those secondary humming groups would all 
cease humming, and hang breathless upon the eloquent words ; 



50 JOHN STERLING. 

till once your islet got wrapt in the mist again, and they could 
recommence humming. Eloquent artistically expressive words 
you always had ; piercing radiances of a most subtle insight 
came at intervals ; tones of noble pious sympathy, recognisable 
as pious though strangely coloured, were never wanting long : 
but in general you could not call this aimless, cloudcapt, cloud- 
based, lawlessly meandering human discourse of reason by the 
name of 'excellent talk,' but on]y of 'surprising ;' and were re- 
minded bitterly of Hazlitt's account of it : " Excellent talker, 
" very, — if you let him start from no premises and come to no 
" conclusion." Coleridge was not without what talkers call wit, 
and there were touches of prickly sarcasm in him, contemptuous 
enough of the world and its idols and popular dignitaries ; he 
had traits even of poetic humour : but in general he seemed de- 
ficient in laughter ; or indeed in sympathy for concrete human 
things either on the sunny or on the stormy side. One right 
peal of concrete laughter at some convicted flesh -and -blood 
absurdity, one burst of noble indignation at some injustice or 
depravity, rubbing elbows with us on this solid Earth, how 
strange would it have been in that Kantean haze-world, and how 
infinitely cheering amid its vacant air-castles and dim-melting 
ghosts and shadows ! None such ever came. His life had been ' 
an abstract thinking and dreaming, idealistic, passed amid the 
ghosts of defunct bodies and of unborn ones. The moaning 
singsong of that theosophico- metaphysical monotony left on 
you, at last, a very dreary feeling. 

In close colloquy, flowing within narrower banks, I suppose 
he was more definite and apprehensible ; Sterling in aftertimes 
did not complain of his unintelligibility, or imputed it only to 
the abstruse high nature of the topics handled. Let us hope so, 
let us try to believe so ! There is no doubt but Coleridge could 
speak plain words on things plain : his observations and re- 
sponses on the trivial matters that occurred were as simple as 
the commonest man's, or were even distinguished by superior 
simplicity as well as pertinency. "Ah, your tea is too cold, Mr. 
Coleridge !" mourned the good Mrs. Gilman once, in her kind, 
reverential and yet protective manner, handing him a very toler- 
able though belated cup. — " It's better than I deserve !" snuffled 
he, in a low hoarse murmur, partly courteous, chiefly pious, the 
tone of which still abides with me : " It's better than I deserve!" 



COLERIDGE. 51 

But indeed, to the young ardent mind, instinct with pious 
nobleness, yet driven to the grim deserts of Radicalism for a 
faith, his speculations had a charm much more than literary, a 
charm almost religious and prophetic. The constant gist of his 
discourse was lamentation over the sunk condition of the world; 
which he recognised to be given-up to Atheism and Materialism, 
full of mere sordid misbeliefs, mispursuits and misresults. All 
Science had become mechanical ; the science not of men, but 
of a kind of human beavers. Churches themselves had died 
away into a godless mechanical condition ; and stood there as 
mere Cases of Articles, mere Forms of Churches ; like the dried 
carcasses of once-swift camels, which you find left withering in 
the thirst of the universal desert, — ghastly portents for the pre- 
sent, beneficent ships of the desert no more. Men's souls were 
blinded, hebetated ; and sunk under the influence of Atheism 
and Materialism, and Hume and Voltaire : the world for the 
present was as an extinct world, deserted of God, and incapable 
of welldoing till it changed its heart and spirit. This, expressed 
I think with less of indignation and with more of long-drawn 
querulousness, was always recognisable as the ground-tone : — 
in which truly a pious young heart, driven into Radicalism and 
the opposition party, could not but recognise a too sorrowful 
truth ; and ask of the Oracle, with all earnestness, What re- 
medy, then ? 

The remedy, though Coleridge himself professed to see it 
as in sunbeams, could not, except by processes unspeakably 
difficult, be described to you at all. On the whole, those dead 
Churches, this dead English Church especially, must be brought 
to life again. Why not ? It was not dead ; the soul of it, in this 
parched-up body, was tragically asleep only. Atheistic Philo- 
sophy was true on its side, and Hume and Voltaire could on 
their own ground speak irrefragably for themselves against any 
Church : but lift the Church and them into a higher sphere of 
argument, they died into inanition, the Church revivified itself 
into pristine florid vigour, — became once more a living ship of 
the desert, and invincibly bore you over stock and stone. But 
how, but how ! By attending to the ' reason' of man, said Cole- 
ridge, and duly chaining-up the ' understanding' of man : the 
Vernunfl (Reason) and Verstand (Understanding) of the Ger- 
mans, it all turned upon these, if you could well understand 



52 JOHN STERLING. 

them, — which you couldn't. For the rest, Mr. Coleridge had 
on the anvil various Books, especially was about to write one 
grand Book O71 the Logos, which would help to bridge the chasm 
for us. So much appeared, however : Churches, though proved 
false (as you had imagined), were still true (as you were to 
imagine) : here was an Artist who could burn you up an old 
Church, root and branch ; and then as the Alchymists professed 
to do with organic substances in general, distil you an ' Astral 
Spirit' from the ashes, which was the very image of the old 
burnt article, its airdrawn counterpart, — this you still had, or 
might get, and draw uses from, if you could. Wait till the Book 
on the Logos were done ; — alas, till your own terrene eyes, blind 
with conceit and the dust of logic, were purged, subtilised and 
spiritualised into the sharpness of vision requisite for discerning 
such an " om-m-mject." — The ingenuous young English head, 
of those days, stood strangely puzzled by such revelations ; un- 
certain whether it were getting inspired, or getting infatuated 
into flat imbecility ; and strange effulgence, of new day or else 
of deeper meteoric night, coloured the horizon of the future 
for it. 

Let me not be unjust to this memorable man. Surely there 
was here, in his pious, ever-labouring, subtle mind, a precious 
truth, or prefigurement of truth ; and yet a fatal delusion withal. 
Prefigurement that, in spite of beaver sciences and temporary 
spiritual hebetude and cecity, man and his Universe were eter- 
nally divine ; and that no past nobleness, or revelation of the 
divine, could or would ever be lost to him. Most true, surely, 
and worthy of all acceptance. Good also to do what you can 
with old Churches and practical Symbols of the Noble : nay 
quit not the burnt ruins of them while you find there is still gold 
to be dug there. But, on the whole, do not think you can, by 
logical alchymy, distil astral spirits from them; or if you could, 
that said astral spirits, or defunct logical phantasms, could serve 
you in anything. What the light of your mind, which is the 
direct inspiration of the Almighty, pronounces incredible, — that, 
in God's name, leave uncredited ; at your peril do not try be- 
lieving that. No subtlest hocus-pocus of 'reason' versus 'under- 
standing' will avail for that feat ; — and it is terribly perilous to 
try it in these provinces ! 

The truth is, I now see, Coleridge's talk and speculation 



COLERIDGE. 53 

was the emblem of himself : in it as in him, a ray of heavenly 
inspiration struggled, in a tragically ineffectual degree, with the 
weakness of flesh and blood. He says once, he ' had skirted 
the howling deserts of Infidelity ;' this was evident enough : but 
he had not had the courage, in defiance of pain and terror, to 
press resolutely across said deserts to the new firm lands of 
Faith beyond ; he preferred to create logical fatamorganas for 
himself on this hither side, and laboriously solace himself with 
these. 

To the man himself Nature had given, in high measure, the 
seeds of a noble endowment ; and to unfold it had been forbidden 
him. A subtle lynx-eyed intellect, tremulous pious sensibility to 
all good and all beautiful ; truly a ray of empyrean light ; — but 
imbedded in such weak laxity of character, in such indolences 
and esuriences as had made strange work with it. Once more, 
the tragic story of a high endowment with an insufficient will. 
An eye to discern the divineness of the Heaven's splendours and 
lightnings, the insatiable wish to revel in their godlike radiances 
and brilliances ; but no heart to front the scathing terrors of 
them, which is the first condition of your conquering an abiding- 
place there. The courage necessary for him, above all things, 
had been denied this man. His life, with such ray of the em- 
pyrean in it, was great and terrible to him ; and he had not 
valiantly grappled with it, he had fled from it ; sought refuge 
in vague day-dreams, hollow compromises, in opium, in theo- 
sophic metaphysics. Harsh pain, danger, necessity, slavish 
harnessed toil, were of all things abhorrent to him. And so the 
empyrean element, lying smothered under the terrene, and yet 
inextinguishable there, made sad writhings. For pain, danger, 
difficulty, steady slaving toil, and other highly disagreeable be- 
hests of destiny, shall in no wise be shirked by any brightest 
mortal that will approve himself loyal to his mission in this 
world ; nay, precisely the higher he is, the deeper will be the 
disagreeableness, and the detestability to flesh and blood, of 
the tasks laid on him ; and the heavier too, and more tragic, his 
penalties if he neglect them. 

For the old Eternal Powers do live forever ; nor do their 
laws know any change, however we in our poor wigs and church- 
tippets may attempt to read their laws. To steal into Heaven, 
— by the modern method, of sticking ostrich-like your head into 



54 JOHN STERLING. 

fallacies on Earth, equally as by the ancient and by all con- 
ceivable methods, — is forever forbidden. High-treason is the 
name of that attempt ; and it continues to be punished as such. 
Strange enough : here once more was a kind of Heaven-scaling 
Ixion ; and to him, as to the old one, the just gods were very 
stern ! The ever-revolving, never-advancing Wheel (of a kind) 
was his, through life ; and from his Cloud-Juno did not he too 
procreate strange Centaurs, spectral Puseyisms, monstrous illu- 
sory Hybrids, and ecclesiastical Chimeras, — which now roam 
the earth in a very lamentable manner ! 



CHAPTER IX. 

SPANISH EXILES. 

This magical ingredient thrown into the wild cauldron of 
such a mind, which we have seen occupied hitherto with mere 
Ethnicism, Radicalism and revolutionary tumult, but hungering 
all along for something higher and better, was sure to be eagerly 
welcomed and imbibed, and could not fail to produce important 
fermentations there. Fermentations ; important new directions, 
and withal important new perversions, in the spiritual life of 
this man, as it has since done in the lives of so many. Here 
then is the new celestial manna we were all in quest of? This 
thrice-refined pabulum of transcendental moonshine ? Whoso 
eateth thereof, — yes, what, on the whole, will he probably 
grow to ? 

Sterling never spoke much to me of his intercourse with 
Coleridge ; and when we did compare notes about him, it was 
usually rather in the way of controversial discussion than of 
narrative. So that, from my own resources, I can give no details 
of the business, nor specify anything in it, except the general 
fact of an ardent attendance at Highgate continued for many 
months, which was impressively known to all Sterling's friends ; 
and am unable to assign even the limitary dates, Sterling's own 
papers on the subject having all been destroyed by him. Infer- 
ences point to the end of 1828 as the beginning of this inter- 
course ; perhaps in 1829 it was at the highest point; and al- 
ready in 1 830, when the intercourse itself was about to terminate, 



SPANISH EXILES. SB 

we have proof of the influences it was producing, — in the Novel 
of Arthur Coningsby, then on hand, the first and only Book that 
Sterling ever wrote. His writings hitherto had been sketches, 
criticisms, brief essays ; he was now trying it on a wider scale ; 
but not yet with satisfactory results, and it proved to be his only 
trial in that form. 

He had already, as was intimated, given-up his brief pro- 
prietorship of the Aihenceumj the commercial indications, and 
state of sales and of costs, peremptorily ordering him to do so ; 
the copyright went by sale or gift, I know not at what precise 
date, into other fitter hands; and with the copyright all con- 
nexion on the part of Sterling. To Athenceum Sketches had 
now (in 1829-30) succeeded A rthur Coningsby, a Novel in three 
volumes ; indicating (when it came to light, a year or two after- 
wards) equally hasty and much more ambitious aims in Litera- 
ture ; — giving strong evidence, too, of internal spiritual revulsions 
going painfully forward, and in particular of the impression 
Coleridge was producing on him. Without and within, it was a 
wild tide of things this ardent light young soul was afloat upon, 
at present ; and his outlooks into the future, whether for his 
spiritual or economic fortunes, were confused enough. 

Among his familiars in this period, I might have mentioned 
one Charles Barton, formerly his fellow-student at Cambridge, 
now an amiable, cheerful, rather idle young fellow about Town ; 
who led the way into certain new experiences, and lighter fields, 
for Sterling. His Father, Lieutenant -General Barton of the 
Life-guards, an Irish landlord, I think in Fermanagh County, 
and a man of connexions about Court, lived in a certain figure 
here in Town ; had a wife of fashionable habits, with other sons, 
and also daughters, bred in this sphere. These, all of them, 
were amiable, elegant and pleasant people ; — such was especially 
an eldest daughter, Susannah Barton, a stately blooming black- 
eyed young woman, attractive enough in form and character ; 
full of gay softness, of indolent sense and enthusiasm ; about 
Sterling's own age, if not a little older. In this house, which 
opened to him, more decisively than his Father's, a new stratum 
of society, and where his reception for Charles's sake and his 
own was of the kindest, he liked very well to be ; and spent, I 
suppose, many of his vacant half-hours, lightly chatting with the 



56 JOHN STERLING. 

elders or the youngsters, — doubtless with the young lady too, 
though as yet without particular intentions on either side. 

Nor, with all the Coleridge fermentation, was democratic 
Radicalism by any means given up ; — though how it was to live 
if the Coleridgean moonshine took effect, might have been an 
abstruse question. Hitherto, while said moonshine was but 
taking effect, and colouring the outer surface of things without 
quite penetrating into the heart, democratic Liberalism, revolt 
against superstition and oppression, and help to whosoever 
would revolt, was still the- grand element in Sterling's creed ; 
and practically he stood, not ready only, but full of alacrity to 
fulfil all its behests. We heard long since of the ' black dra- 
goons,' — whom doubtless the new moonshine had considerably 
silvered-over into new hues, by this time : — but here now, while 
Radicalism is tottering for him and threatening to crumble, 
comes suddenly the grand consummation and explosion of Radi- 
calism in his life ; whereby, all at once, Radicalism exhausted 
and ended itself, and appeared no more there. 

In those years a visible section of the London population, 
and conspicuous out of all proportion to its size or value, was a 
small knot of Spaniards, who had sought shelter here as Poli- 
tical Refugees. " Political Refugees :" a tragic succession of 
that class is one of the possessions of England in our time. 
Six-and-twenty years ago, when I first saw London, I remember 
those unfortunate Spaniards among the new phenomena. Daily 
in the cold spring air, under skies so unlike their own, you 
could see a group of fifty or a hundred stately tragic figures, in 
proud threadbare cloaks ; perambulating, mostly with closed 
lips, the broad pavements of Euston Square and the regions 
about St. Pancras new Church. Their lodging was chiefly in 
Somers Town, as I understood ; and those open pavements 
about St. Pancras Church were the general place of rendez- 
vous. They spoke little or no English ; knew nobody, could 
employ themselves on nothing, in this new scene. Old steel- 
gray heads, many of them ; the shaggy, thick, blue-black hair 
of others struck you ; their brown complexion, dusky look of 
suppressed fire, in general their tragic condition as of caged 
Numidian lions. 

That particular Flight of Unfortunates has long since fled 



TORRIJOS. 57 

again, and vanished ; and new have come and fled. In this 
convulsed revolutionary epoch, which already lasts above sixty 
years, what tragic flights of such have we not seen arrive on the 
one safe coast which is open to them, as they get successively 
vanquished, and chased into exile to avoid worse ! Swarm 
after swarm, of ever-new complexion, from Spain as from other 
countries, is thrown off, in those ever-recurring paroxysms; and 
will continue to be thrown off. As there could be (suggests 
Linnaeus) a ' flower-clock, ' measuring the hours of the day, and 
the months of the year, by the kinds of flowers that go to sleep 
and awaken, that blow into beauty and fade into dust : so in 
the great Revolutionary Horologe, one might mark the years 
and epochs by the successive kinds of exiles that walk London 
streets, and, in grim silent manner, demand pity from us and 
reflections from us. — This then extant group of Spanish Exiles 
was the Trocadero swarm, thrown-offin 1823, in the Riego and 
Ouirogas quarrel. These were they whom Charles Tenth had, 
by sheer force, driven from their constitutionalisms and their 
Trocadero fortresses, — Charles Tenth, who himself was soon 
driven out, manifoldly by sheer force ; and had to head his 
own swarm of fugitives ; and has now himself quite vanished, 
and given place to others. For there is no end of them ; pro- 
pelling and propelled ! — 

Of these poor Spanish Exiles, now vegetating about Somers 
Town, and painfully beating the pavement in Euston Square, 
the acknowledged chief was General Torrijos, a man of high 
qualities and fortunes, still in the vigour of his years, and in 
these desperate circumstances refusing to despair ; with whom 
Sterling had, at this time, become intimate. 



CHAPTER X. 

TORRIJOS. 

Torrijos, who had now in 1829 been here some four or 
five years, having come over in 1824, had from the first enjoyed 
a superior reception in England. Possessing not only a. language 
to speak, which few of the others did, but manifold experiences 
courtly, military, diplomatic, with fine natural faculties, and 



58 JOHN STERLING. 

high Spanish manners tempered into cosmopolitan, he had 
been welcomed in various circles of society ; and found, perhaps 
he alone of those Spaniards, a certain human companionship 
among persons of some standing in this country. With the 
elder Sterlings, among others, he had made acquaintance ; be- 
came familiar in the social circle at South Place, and was much 
esteemed there. With Madam Torrijos, who also was a person 
of amiable and distinguished qualities, an affectionate friend- 
ship grew up on the part of Mrs. Sterling, which ended only 
with the death of these two ladies. John Sterling, on arriving 
in London from his University work, naturally inherited what 
he liked to take-up of this relation : and in the lodgings in 
Regent Street, and the democratico-literary element there, Tor- 
rijos became a very prominent, and at length almost the central 
object. 

The man himself, it is well known, was a valiant, gallant 
man ; of lively intellect, of noble chivalrous character : fine 
talents, fine accomplishments, all grounding themselves on a 
certain rugged veracity, recommended him to the discerning. 
He had begun youth in the Court of Ferdinand ; had gone on 
in Wellington and other arduous, victorious and unvictorious, 
soldierings ; familiar in camps and council-rooms, in presence- 
chambers and in prisons. He knew romantic Spain ; — he was 
himself, standing withal in the vanguard of Freedom's fight, a 
kind of living romance. Infinitely interesting to John Sterling, 
for one. 

It was to Torrijos that the poor Spaniards of Somers Town 
looked mainly, in their helplessness, for every species of help. 
Torrijos, it was hoped, would yet lead them into Spain and 
glorious victory there ; meanwhile here in England, under de- 
feat, he was their captain and sovereign in another painfully in- 
verse sense. To whom, in extremity, everybody might apply. 
When all present resources failed, and the exchequer was quite 
out, there still remained Torrijos. Torrijos has to find new 
resources for his destitute patriots, find loans, find Spanish 
lessons for them among his English friends : in all which 
charitable operations, it need not be said, John Sterling was 
his foremost man ; zealous to empty his own purse for the object; 
impetuous in rushing hither or thither to enlist the aid of others, 
and find lessons or something that would do. His friends, of 



TORRIJOS. 59 

course, had to assist ; the Bartons, among others, were wont to 
assist ; — and I have heard that the fair Susan, stirring-up her 
indolent enthusiasm into practicality, was very successful in 
finding Spanish lessons, and the like, for these distressed men. 
Sterling and his friends were yet .new in this business ; but 
Torrijos and the others were getting old in it, — and doubtless 
weary and almost desperate of it. j They had now been seven 
years in it, many of them ; and were asking, When will the 
end be ? 

Torrijos is described as a man of excellent discernment : 
who knows how long he had repressed the unreasonable 
schemes of his followers, and turned a deaf ear to the temptings 
of fallacious hope ? But there comes at length a sum-total 
of oppressive burdens which is intolerable, which tempts the 
wisest towards fallacies for relief. These weary groups, pacing 
the Euston-Square pavements, had often said in their despair, 
" Were not * death in battle better? Here are we slowly 
" mouldering into nothingness; there we might reach it rapidly, 
" in flaming splendour. Flame, either of victory to Spain and 
" us, or of a patriot death, the sure harbinger of victory to 
" Spain. Flame fit to kindle a fire which no Ferdinand, with 
" all his Inquisitions and Charles-Tenths, could put out." 
Enough, in the end of 1829, Torrijos himself had yielded to 
this pressure ; and hoping against hope, persuaded himself that 
if he could but land in the South of Spain with a small patriot 
band well armed and well resolved, a band carrying fire in its 
heart, — then Spain, all inflammable as touchwood, and groan- 
ing indignantly under its brutal tyrant, might blaze wholly into 
flame round him, and incalculable victory be won. Such was 
his conclusion ; not sudden, yet surely not deliberate either, — 
desperate rather, and forced-on by circumstances. He thought 
with himself that, considering Somers Town and considering 
Spain, the terrible chance was worth trying ; that this big game 
of Fate, go how it might, was one which the omens credibly 
declared he and these poor Spaniards ought to play. 

His whole industries and energies were thereupon bent to- 
wards starting the said game ; and his thought and continual 
speech and song now was, That if he had a few thousand 
pounds to buy arms, to freight a ship and make the other prepa- 
rations, he and these poor gentlemen, and Spain and the world, 



60 JOHN STERLING. 

were made men and a saved Spain and world. What talks 
and consultations in the apartment in Regent Street, during 
those winter days of 1829-30 ; setting into open conflagration 
the young democracy that was wont to assemble there ! Of 
which there is now left next to no remembrance. For Sterling 
never spoke a word of this affair in after days, nor was any of 
the actors much tempted to speak. We can understand too 
well that here were young fervid hearts in an explosive condi- 
tion ; young rash heads, sanctioned by a man's experienced 
head. Here at last shall enthusiasm and theory become prac- 
tice and fact ; fiery dreams are at last permitted to realise 
themselves ; and now is the time or never ! — How the Coleridge 
moonshine comported itself amid these hot telluric flames, or 
whether it had not yet begun to play there (which I rather 
doubt), must be left to conjecture. 

Mr. Hare speaks of Sterling ' sailing over to St. Valery in 
an open boat along with others,' upon one occasion, in this 
enterprise ; — in the final English scene of it, I suppose. Which 
is very possible. Unquestionably there was adventure enough 
of other kinds for it, and running to and fro with all his speed 
on behalf of it, during these months of his history ! Money 
was subscribed, collected: the young Cambridge democrats 
were all a-blaze to assist Torrijos ; nay certain of them decided 
to go with him, — and went. Only, as yet, the funds were 
rather incomplete. And here, as I learn from a good hand, is 
the secret history of their becoming complete. Which, as we 
are upon the subject, I had better give. But for the following 
circumstance, they had perhaps never been completed ; nor had 
the rash enterprise, or its catastrophe, so influential on the rest 
of Sterling's life, taken place at all. 

A certain Lieutenant Robert Boyd, of the Indian Army, an 
Ulster Irishman, a cousin of Sterling's, had received some 
affront, or otherwise taken some disgust in that service ; had 
thrown-up his commission in consequence ; and returned home, 
about this time, with intent to seek another course of life. Hav- 
ing only, for outfit, these impatient ardours, some experience in 
Indian drill-exercise, and five thousand pounds of inheritance, 
he found the enterprise attended v/ith difficulties ; and was some- 
what at a loss how to dispose of himself. Some young Ulster 
comrade, in a partly similar situation, had pointed out to him 



TORRIJOS. 61 

that there lay in a certain neighbouring creek of the Irish coast, 
a worn-out royal gun-brig condemned, to sale, to be had dog- 
cheap : this he proposed that they two, or in fact Boyd with 
his five thousand pounds, should buy ; that they should refit and 
arm and man it; — and sail a -privateering "to the Eastern 
Archipelago," Philippine Isles, or I know not where ; and so 
conquer the golden fleece. 

Boyd naturally paused a little at this great proposal ; did 
not quite reject it ; came across, with it and other fine projects 
and impatiences fermenting in his head, to London, there to 
see and consider. It was in the months when the Torrijos en- 
terprise was in the birth -throes ; crying wildly for capital, of 
all things. Boyd naturally spoke of his projects to Sterling, — 
of his gun-brig lying in the Irish creek, among others. Sterling 
naturally said, " If you want an adventure of the Sea-king sort, 
" and propose to lay your money and your life into such a 
" game, here is Torrijos and Spain at his back ; here is a golden 
" fleece to conquer, worth twenty Eastern Archipelagos." — Boyd 
and Torrijos quickly met; quickly bargained. Boyd's money 
was to go in purchasing, and storing with a certain stock of 
arms and etceteras, a small ship in the Thames, which should 
carry Boyd with Torrijos and the adventurers to the south coast 
of Spain ; and there, the game once played and won, Boyd was 
to have promotion enough, — ' the colonelcy of a Spanish ca- 
valry regiment,' for one express thing. What exact share Ster- 
ling had in this negotiation, or whether he did not even take 
the prudent side and caution Boyd to be wary, I know not ; 
but it was he that brought the parties together ; and all his 
friends knew, in silence, that to the end of his life he painfully 
remembered that fact. 

And so a ship was hired, or purchased, in the Thames ; due 
furnishings began to be executed in it ; arms and stores were 
gradually got on board ; Torrijos with his Fifty picked Spani- 
ards, in the mean while, getting ready. This was in the spring 
of 1830. Boyd's 5000/. was the grand nucleus of finance ; but 
vigorous subscription was carried on likewise in Sterling's young 
democratic circle, or wherever a member of it could find access; 
not without considerable result, and with a zeal that may be 
imagined. Nay, as above hinted, certain of these young men 
decided, not to give their money only, but themselves along with 



62 JOHN STERLING. 

it, as democratic volunteers and soldiers of progress ; among 
whom, it need not be said, Sterling intended to be foremost. 
Busy weeks with him, those spring ones of the year 1 830 ! 
Through this small Note, accidentally preserved to us, addressed 
to his friend Barton, we obtain a curious glance into the sub- 
terranean workshop : 

' To Charles Barton, Esq., Dorset Sq., Regent's Park. 
[No date; apparently March or February 1830.] 

' My dear Charles, — I have wanted to see you to talk to 
1 you about my Foreign affairs. If you are going to be in Lon- 
1 don for a few days, I believe you can be very useful to me, at 
' a considerable expense and trouble to yourself, in the way of 
' buying accoutrements ; inter alia, a sword and a saddle, — not, 

* you will understand, for my own use. 

• Things are going on very well, but are very, even fright- 
' fully near ; only be quiet ! Pray would you, in case of neces- 

* sity, take a free passage to Holland, next week or the week 
' after ; stay two or three days, and come back, all expenses 

' paid ? If you write to B at Cambridge, tell him above 

' all things to hold his tongue. If you are near Palace Yard to- 

* morrow before two, pray come to see me. Do not come on 
' purpose ; especially as I may perhaps be away, and at all 
' events shall not be there until eleven, nor perhaps till rather 
' later. 

' I fear I shall have alarmed your Mother by my irruption. 
' Forgive me for that and all my exactions from you. If the 

* next month were over, I should not have to trouble any one. 

* — Yours affectionately, _ T c 

' 'J. Sterling. 

Busy weeks indeed ; and a glowing smithy - light coming 
through the chinks ! — The romance of Arthur Coningsby lay 
written, or half-written, in his desk ; and here, in his heart and 
among his hands, was an acted romance and unknown cata- 
strophes keeping pace with that. 

Doubts from the doctors, for his health was getting ominous, 
threw some shade over the adventure. Reproachful reminis- 
cences of Coleridge and Theosophy were natural too ; then fond 
regrets for Literature and its glories : if you act your romance, 



TORRIJOS. 63 

how can you also write it ? Regrets, and reproachful reminis- 
cences, from Art and Theosophy ; perhaps some tenderer re- 
grets withal. A crisis in life had come ; when, of innumerable 
possibilities one possibility was to be elected king, and to swal- 
low all the rest, the rest of course made noise enough, and 
swelled themselves to their biggest. 

Meanwhile the ship was fast getting ready : on a certain 
day, it was to drop quietly down the Thames ; then touch at 
Deal, and take on board Torrijos and his adventurers, who 
were to be in waiting and on the outlook for them there. Let 
every man lay-in his accoutrements, then ; let every man make 
his packages, his arrangements and farewells. Sterling went to 
take leave of Miss Barton. "You are going, then ; to Spain ? 
" To rough it amid the storms of war and perilous insurrection; 
" and with that weak health of yours ; and — we shall never see 
" you more, then !" Miss Barton, all her gaiety gone, the dimp- 
ling softness become liquid sorrow, and the musical ringing 
voice one wail of woe, 'burst into tears,' — so I have it on autho- 
rity : — here was one possibility about to be strangled that made 
unexpected noise ! Sterling's interview ended in the offer of his 
hand, and the acceptance of it ; — any sacrifice to get rid of this 
horrid Spanish business, and save the health and life of a gifted 
young man so precious to the world and to another ! 

'Ill-health,' as often afterwards in Sterling's life, when the ex- 
cuse was real enough but not the chief excuse ; 'ill-health, and 
insuperable obstacles and engagements,' had to bear the chief 
brunt in apologising : and, as Sterling's actual presence, or that 
of any Englishman except Boyd and his money, was not in the 
least vital to the adventure, his excuse was at once accepted. 
The English connexions and subscriptions are a given fact, 
to be presided over by what English volunteers there are : and 
as for Englishmen, the fewer Englishmen that go, the larger 
will be the share of influence for each. The other adventurers, 
Torrijos among them in due readiness, moved silently one by 
one down to Deal : Sterling, superintending the naval hands, 
on board their ship in the Thames, was to see the last finish 
given to everything in that department ; then, on the set even- 
ing, to drop down quietly to Deal, and there say A7idadcon Bios, 
and return. 



64 JOHN STERLING. 

Behold ! Just before the set evening came, the Spanish 
Envoy at this Court has got notice of what is going on ; the 
Spanish Envoy, and of course the British Foreign Secretary, 
and of course also the Thames Police. Armed men spring sud- 
denly on board, one day, while Sterling is there ; declare the 
ship seized and embargoed in the King's name ; nobody on 
board to stir till he has given some account of himself in due 
time and place ! Huge consternation, naturally, from stem to 
stern. Sterling, whose presence of mind seldom forsook him, 
casts his eye over the River and its craft ; sees a wherry, pri- 
vately signals it, drops rapidly on board of it : " Stop !" fiercely 
interjects the marine policeman from the ship's deck. — "Why 
stop ? What use have you for me, or I for you ?" and the oars 
begin playing. — "Stop, or I'll shoot you!" cries the marine 
policeman, drawing a pistol. — " No, you won't." — " I will !" — 
" If you do you'll be hanged at the next Maidstone assizes, then ; 
that's all," — and Sterling's wherry shot rapidly ashore ; and out 
of this perilous adventure. 

That same night he posted down to Deal ; disclosed to the 
Torrijos party what catastrophe had come. No passage Spain- 
ward from the Thames ; well if arrestment do not suddenly 
come from the Thames ! It was on this occasion, I suppose, 
that the passage in the open boat to St. Valery occurred ; — ■ 
speedy flight in what boat or boats, open or shut, could be got 
at Deal on the sudden. Sterling himself, according to Hare's 
authority, actually went with them so far. Enough, they got 
shipping, as private passengers in one craft or the other ; and, 
by degrees or at once, arrived all at Gibraltar, — Boyd, one or 
two young democrats of Regent Street, the fifty picked Spani- 
ards, and Torrijos, — safe, though without arms; still in the 
early part of the year. 



CHAPTER XI. 

MARRIAGE : ILL-HEALTH ; WEST-INDIES. 

Sterling's outlooks and occupations, now that his Spanish 
friends were gone, must have been of a rather miscellaneous 
confused description. Pie had the enterprise of a married life 
close before him ; and as yet no profession, no fixed pursuit 



MARRIAGE : ILL-HEALTH ; WEST-INDIES. 65 

whatever. His health was already very threatening ; often such 
as to disable him from present activity, and occasion the gravest 
apprehensions ; practically blocking-up all important courses 
whatsoever, and rendering the fufeure, if even life were length- 
ened and he had any future, an insolubility for him. Parlia- 
ment was shut, public life was shut : Literature, — if, alas, any 
solid fruit could lie in Literature ! 

Or perhaps one's health would mend, after all ; and many 
things be better than was hoped ! Sterling was not of a de- 
spondent temper, or given in any measure to lie down and in- 
dolently moan : I fancy he walked briskly enough into this tem- 
pestuous-looking future ; not heeding too much its thunderous 
aspects ; doing swiftly, for the day, what his hand found to do. 
Arthur Coningsby, I suppose, lay on the anvil at present; visits 
to Coleridge were now again more possible ; grand news from 
Torrijos might be looked for, though only small yet came : — 
nay here, in the hot July, is France, at least, all thrown into 
volcano again ! Here are the miraculous Three Days ; herald- 
ing, in thunder, great things to Torrijos and others ; filling with 
babblement and vaticination the mouths and hearts of all de- 
mocratic men. 

So rolled along, in tumult of chaotic remembrance and un- 
certain hope, in manifold emotion, and the confused struggle 
(for Sterling as for the world) to extricate the New from the fall- 
ing ruins of the Old, the summer and autumn of 1830. From 
Gibraltar and Torrijos the tidings were vague, unimportant and 
discouraging : attempt on Cadiz, attempt on the lines of St. 
Roch, those attempts, or rather resolutions to attempt, had died 
in the birth, or almost before it. Men blamed Torrijos, little 
knowing his impediments. Boyd was still patient at his post : 
others of the young English (on the strength of the subscribed 
moneys) were said to be thinking of tours, — perhaps in the 
Sierra Morena and neighbouring Quixote regions. From that 
Torrijos enterprise it did not seem that anything considerable 
would come. 

On the edge of winter, here at home, Sterling was married: 
' at Christchurch, Marylebone, 2d November 1830/ say the re- 
cords. His blooming, kindly and true-hearted Wife had not 
much money, nor had he as yet any : but friends on both sides 

F 



66 JOHN STERLING. 

were bountiful and hopeful ; had made-up, for the young couple, 
the foundations of a modestly effective household ; and in the 
future there lay more substantial prospects. On the finance side 
Sterling never had anything to suffer. His Wife, though some- 
what languid, and of indolent humour, was a graceful, pious- 
minded, honourable and affectionate woman ; she could not 
much support him in the ever-shifting struggles of his life, but 
she faithfully attended him in them, and loyally marched by his 
side through the changes and nomadic pilgrimings, of which 
many were appointed him in his short course. 

Unhappily a few weeks after his marriage, and before any 
household was yet set up, he fell dangerously ill ; worse in health 
than he had ever yet been : so many agitations crowded into 
the last few months had been too much for him. He fell into 
dangerous pulmonary illness, sank ever deeper ; lay for many 
weeks in his Father's house utterly prostrate, his young Wife 
and his Mother watching over him ; friends, sparingly admitted, 
long despairing of his life. All prospects in this world were 
now apparently shut upon him. 

After a while, came hope again, and kindlier symptoms : 
but the doctors intimated that there lay consumption in the 
question, and that perfect recovery was not to be looked for. 
For weeks he had been confined to bed ; it was several months 
before he could leave his sick-room, where the visits of a few 
friends had much cheered him. And now when delivered, re- 
admitted to the air of day again, —weak as he was, and with 
such a liability still lurking in him, — what his young partner 
and he were to do, or whitherward to turn for a good course of 
life, was by no means too apparent. 

One of his Mother Mrs. Edward Sterling's Uncles, a Con- 
ingham from Deny, had, in the course of his industrious and 
adventurous life, realised large property in the West Indies,- — ■ 
a valuable Sugar-estate, with its equipments, in the Island of 
St. Vincent ; — from which Mrs. Sterling and her family were 
now, and had been for some years before her Uncle's decease, 
deriving important benefits. I have heard, it was then worth 
some ten thousand pounds a- year to the parties interested. 
Anthony Sterling, John, and another a cousin of theirs were 
ultimately to be heirs, in equal proportions. The old gentle- 



ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT. 67 

man, always kind to his kindred, and a brave and solid man 
though somewhat abrupt in his ways, had lately died; leaving 
a settlement to this effect, not without some intricacies, and 
almost caprices, in the conditions attached. 

This property, which is still a valuable one, was Sterling's 
chief pecuniary outlook for the distant future. Of course it well 
deserved taking care of; and if the eye of the master were upon 
it, of course too (according to the adage) the cattle would fatten 
better. As the warm climate was favourable to pulmonary 
complaints, and Sterling's occupations were so shattered to 
pieces and his outlooks here so waste 'and vague, why should 
not he undertake this duty for himself and others ? 

It was fixed upon as the eligiblest course. A visit to St. 
Vincent, perhaps a permanent residence there : he went into 
the project with his customary impetuosity ; his young Wife 
cheerfully consenting, and all manner of new hopes clustering 
round it. There are the rich tropical sceneries, the romance of 
the torrid zone with its new skies and seas and lands ; there are 
Blacks, and the Slavery question to be investigated ; there are 
the bronzed Whites and Yellows, and their strange new way of 
life : by all means let us go and try ! — Arrangements being 
completed, so soon as his strength had sufficiently recovered, 
and the harsh spring winds had sufficiently abated, Sterling 
with his small household set sail for St. Vincent ; and arrived 
without accident. His first child, a son Edward, now living and 
grown to manhood, was born there, ' at Brighton in the Island 
of St. Vincent,' in the fall of that year 1831. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT. 

Sterling found a pleasant residence, with all its adjuncts, 
ready for him, at Colonarie, in this 'volcanic Isle' under the hot 
sun. An interesting Isle : a place of rugged chasms, precipitous 
gnarled heights, and the most fruitful hollows ; shaggy every- 
where with luxuriant vegetation ; set under magnificent skies, 
in the mirror of the summer seas ; offering everywhere the 
grandest sudden outlooks and contrasts. His Letters represent 



68 JOHN STERLING. 

a placidly cheerful riding life : a pensive humour, but the thun- 
derclouds all sleeping in the distance. Good relations with a 
few neighbouring planters ; indifference to the noisy political 
and other agitations of the rest : friendly, by no means romantic 
appreciation of the Blacks ; quiet prosperity economic and do- 
mestic : on the whole a healthy and recommendable way of life, 
with Literature very much in abeyance in it. 

He writes to Mr. Hare (date not given) : * The landscapes 
' around me here are noble and lovely as any that can be con- 
• ceived on Earth. How indeed could it be otherwise, in a 
' small Island of volcanic mountains, far within the Tropics, 
' and perpetually covered with the richest vegetation ?' The 
moral aspect of things is by no means so good ; but neither is 
that without its fair features. ' So far as I see, the Slaves here 
' are cunning, deceitful and idle ; without any great aptitude for 
' ferocious crimes, and with very little scruple at committing 
' others. But I have seen them much only in very favourable 
' circumstances. They are, as a body, decidedly unfit for free- 
' dom ; and if left, as at present, completely in the hands of 
' their masters, will never become so, unless through the agency 
4 of the Methodists.' 1 

In the Autumn came an immense hurricane ; with new and 
indeed quite perilous experiences of West -Indian life. This 
hasty Letter, addressed to his Mother, is not intrinsically his 
remarkablest from St. Vincent : but the body of fact delineated 
in it being so much the greatest, we will quote it in preference. 
A West -Indian tornado, as John Sterling witnesses it, and 
with vivid authenticity describes it, may be considered worth 
looking at. 

' To Mrs. Sterling, South Place, Knightsbridge, London. 

' Brighton, St. Vincent, 28th August 1831. 
'My dear Mother, — The packet came in yesterday ; bring- 
' ing me some Newspapers, a Letter from my Father, and one 
' from Anthony, with a few lines from you. I wrote, some days 
' ago, a hasty Note to my Father, on the chance of its reaching 
' you through Grenada sooner than any communication by the 
' packet ; and in it I spoke of the great misfortune which had 

1 Biography, by Mr. Hare, p.^xli. 



ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT. 69 

befallen this Island and Barbadoes, but from which all those 
you take an interest in have happily escaped unhurt. 

' From the day of our arrival in the West Indies until Thurs- 
day the 1 1 th instant, which will long be a memorable day with 
us, I had been doing my best to get ourselves established com- 
fortably ; and I had at last bought the materials for making 
some additions to the house. But on the morning I have men- 
tioned, all that I had exerted myself to do, nearly all the pro- 
perty both of Susan and myself, and the very house we lived 
in, were suddenly destroyed by a visitation of Providence far 
more terrible than any I have ever witnessed. 

1 When Susan came from her room, to breakfast, at eight 
o'clock, I pointed out to her the extraordinary height and vio- 
lence of the surf, and the singular appearance of the clouds 
of heavy rain sweeping down the valleys before us. At this 
time I had so little apprehension of what was coming, that I 
talked of riding down to the shore when the storm should abate, 
as I had never seen so fierce a sea. In about a quarter of an 
hour the House-Negroes came in, to close the outside shutters 
of the windows. They knew that the plantain-trees about the 
Negro houses had been blown down in the night ; and had told 
the maid-servant Tyrrell, but I had heard nothing of it. A very 
few minutes after the closing of the windows, I found that the 
shutters of Tyrrell's room, at the south and commonly the 
most sheltered end of the House, were giving way. I tried 
to tie them ; but the silk handkerchief which I used soon gave 
way ; and as I had neither hammer, boards nor nails in the 
house, I could do nothing more to keep out the tempest. I 
found, in pushing at the leaf of the shutter, that the wind re- 
sisted, more as if it had been a stone wall or a mass of iron, 
than a mere current of air. There were one or two people out- 
side trying to fasten the windows, and I went out to help ; 
but we had no tools at hand : one man was blown down the 
hill in front of the house, before my face ; and the other and 
myself had great difficulty in getting back again inside the 
door. The rain on my face and hands felt like so much small 
shot from a gun. There was great exertion necessary to shut 
the door of the house. 

' The windows at the end of the large room were now giving 
1 way; and I suppose it was about nine o'clock, when the hurri- 



7o JOHN STERLING. 






' cane burst them in, as if it had been a discharge from a bat- 
' tery of heavy cannon. The shutters were first forced open, 
' and the wind fastened them back to the wall ; and then the 
' panes of glass were smashed by the mere force of the gale, 
' without anything having touched them. Even now I was not 
' at all sure the house would go. My books, I saw, were lost ; 
' for the rain poured past the bookcases, as if it had been the 
' Colonarie River. But we carried a good deal of furniture into 
' the passage at the entrance ; we set Susan there on a sofa, 
' and the Black Housekeeper was even attempting to get her 
' some breakfast. The house, however, began to shake so vio- 
' lently, and the rain was so searching, that she could not stay 
' there long. She went into her own room ; and I stayed to 
' see what could be done. 

' Under the forepart of the house, there are cellars built of 
' stone, but not arched. To these, however, there was no access 
' except on the outaiae ; and I knew from my own experience 
' that Susan could not have gone a step beyond the door, with- 
' out being carried away by the storm, and probably killed on 
' the spot. The only chance seemed to be that of breaking 
' through the floor. But when the old Cook and myself resolved 
' on this, we found that we had no instrument with which it 
' would be possible to do it. It was now clear that we had only 
' God to trust in. The front windows were giving way with 
' successive crashes, and the floor shook as you may have seen 
' a carpet on a gusty day in London. I went into our bed-room ; 
' where I found Susan, Tyrrell, and a little Coloured girl of 
' seven or eight years old ; and told them that we should pro- 

* bably not be alive in half an hour. I could have escaped, if 
'I had chosen to go alone, by crawling on the ground either 
' into the kitchen, a separate stone building at no great dis- 
' tancej or into the open fields away from trees or houses ; but 
' Susan could not have gone a yard. She became quite calm 
' when she knew the worst ; and she sat on my knee in what 
' seemed the safest corner of the room, while every blast was 
' bringing nearer and nearer the moment of our seemingly cer- 
' tain destruction. 

' The house was under two parallel roofs ; and the one next 
' the sea, which sheltered the other, and us who were under the 

* other, went off, I suppose about ten o'clock. After my old 



ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT. 



71 



' plan, I will give you a sketch, from which you may perceive 
* how we were situated : 



1 i 

T e 


. — , — i — j 

b b b a- 


1 
r 


a- 


f f 




3 a 


l 

i 


- d 


. 



r 



tn 



i h 



The a, a are the windows that were first destroyed : b went 
next ; my books were between the windows b, and on the 
wall opposite to them. The lines c and d mark the directions 
of the two roofs ; e is the room in which we were, and 2 is a 
plan of it on a larger scale. Look now at 2 : a is the bed ; 
c, c the two wardrobes ; b the corner in which we were. I 
was sitting in an arm-chair, holding my Wife ; and Tyrrell 
and the little Black child were close to us. We had given-up 
all notion of surviving; and only waited for the fall of the roof 
to perish together. 

' Before long the roof went. Most of the materials, how- 
ever, were carried clear away : one of the large couples was 
caught on the bed-post marked d, and held fast by the iron 
spike ; while the end of it hung over our heads : had the 
beam fallen an inch on either side of the bed-post, it must 
necessarily have crushed us. The walls did not go with the 
roof ; and we remained for half an hour, alternately praying 
to God, and watching them as they bent, creaked, and 
shivered before the storm. 

' Tyrrell and the child, when the roof was off, made their 
way through the remains of the partition, to the 'outer door ; 
and with the help of the people who were looking for us, got 
into the kitchen. A good while after they were gone, and 
before we knew anything of their fate, a Negro suddenly came 
upon us : and the sight of him gave us a hope of safety. 
When the people learned that we were in danger, and while 
their own huts were flying about their ears, they crowded to 
help us ; and the old Cook urged them on to our rescue. He 
made five attempts, after saving Tyrrell, to get to us ; and 



72 JOHN STERLING. 

4 four times he was blown down. The fifth time he, and fhe 
1 Negro we first saw, reached the house. The space they had 
4 to traverse was not above twenty yards of level ground, if so 
4 much. In another minute or two, the Overseers and a crowd 
1 of Negroes, most of whom had come on their hands and 

• knees, were surrounding us ; and with their help Susan was 
1 carried round to the end of the house ; where they broke-open 
' the cellar window, and placed her in comparative safety. The 
' force of the hurricane was, by this time, a good deal dimin- 

• ished, or it would have been impossible to stand before it. 

' But the wind was still terrific ; and the rain poured into 
' the cellars through the floor above. Susan, Tyrrell, and a 
' crowd of Negroes remained under it, for more than two hours : 
' and I was long afraid that the wet and cold would kill her, if 
4 she did not perish more violently. Happily we had wine and 
4 spirits at hand, and she was much nerved by a tumbler of 
' claret. As soon as I saw her in comparative security, I went 

• off with one of the Overseers down to the Works, where the 
1 greater number of the Negroes were collected, that we might 
4 see what could be done for them. They were wretched 
4 enough, but no one was hurt ; and I ordered them a dram 
1 apiece, which seemed to give them a good deal of consolation. 

* Before I could make my way back, the hurricane became 
' as bad as at first ; and I was obliged to take shelter for half 
4 an hour in a ruined Negro house. This, however, was the 
4 last of its extreme violence. By one o'clock, even the rain 
4 had in a great degree ceased ; and as only one room of the 
4 house, the one marked^ was standing, and that rickety, — I 
4 had Susan carried in a chair down the hill, to the Hospital ; 
1 where, in a small paved unlighted room, she spent the next 
4 twenty-four hours. She was far less injured than might have 
' been expected from such a catastrophe. 

4 Next day, I had the passage at the entrance of the house 
4 repaired and roofed ; and we returned to the ruins of our 
4 habitation, still encumbered as they were with the wreck of 
4 almost all we were possessed of. The walls of the part of the 
4 house next the sea were carried away, in less I think than 
4 half an hour after we reached the cellar : when I had leisure 
' to examine the remains of the house, I found the floor strewn 

• with fragments of the building, and with broken furniture ; 



ISLAND OF ST. VINCENT. 73 

• and our books all soaked as completely as if they had been 
' for several hours in the sea. 

' In the course of a few days I had the other room, £', 
1 which is under the same roof as the one saved, rebuilt ; and 
' Susan stayed in this temporary abode for a week, — when we 
' left Colonarie, and came to Brighton. Mr. Munro's kindness 
' exceeds all precedent. We shall certainly remain here till my 
1 Wife is recovered from her confinement. In the mean while 

• we shall ha\te*a new house built, in which we hope to be well 
' settled before Christmas. 

' The roof was half blown off the kitchen, but I have had it 
' mended already ; the other offices were all swept away. The 
' gig is much injured ; and my horse received a wound in the 
' fall of the stable, from which he will not be recovered for some 
' weeks : in the mean time I have no choice but to buy another, 
' as I must go at least once or twice a week to Colonarie, be- 
' sides business in Town. As to our own comforts, we can 
' scarcely expect ever to recover from the blow that has now 

• stricken us. No money would repay me for the loss of my 
' books, of which a large proportion had been in my hands for 
' so many years that they were like old and faithful friends, and 
' of which many had been given me at different times by the 
' persons in the world whom I most value. 

• But against all this I have to set the preservation of our 
1 lives, in a way the most awfully providential ; and the safety 
' of every one on the Estate. And I have also the great satis- 
1 faction of reflecting that all the Negroes from whom any 
' assistance could reasonably be expected, behaved like so 
' many Heroes of Antiquity ; risking their lives and limbs for 

• us and our property, while their own poor houses were flying 

• like chaff before the hurricane. There are few White people 
' here who can say as much for their Black dependents ; and 
' the force and value of the relation between Master and Slave 
' has been tried by the late calamity on a large scale. 

' Great part of both sides of this Island has been laid com- 
' pletely waste. The beautiful wide and fertile Plain called the 
' Charib Country, extending for many miles to the north of 
' Colonarie, and formerly containing the finest sets of works 
' and best dwelling-houses in the Island, is, I am told, com- 
' pletely desolate : on several estates not a roof even of a 



• 



74 JOHN STERLING. 

' Negro hut standing. In the embarrassed circumstances of 
' many of the proprietors, the ruin is, I fear, irreparable. — At 
' Colonarie the damage is serious, but by no means desperate. 
' The crop is perhaps injured ten or fifteen per cent. The roofs 
1 of several large buildings are destroyed, but these we are 
' already supplying ; anil the injuries done to the cottages of 

* the Negroes are, fey this time, nearly if not quite remedied. 

' Indeed, all that has been suffered in St. Vincent appears 
' nothing when compared with the appalling Jpss of property 
' and of human lives at Barbadoes. There the Town is little 
' but a heap of ruins, and the corpses are reckoned by thou- 
' sands ; while throughout the Island there are not, I believe, 
1 ten estates on which the buildings are standing. The Elliotts, 
' from whom we have heard, are living with all their family in 
' a tent ; and may think themselves wonderfully saved, 'when 
1 whole families round them were crushed at once beneath their 
' houses. Hugh Barton, the only officer of the Garrison hurt, 
' has broken his arm, and we know nothing of his prospects of 
' recovery. The moire horrible misfortune of Barbadoes is 
' partly to be accounted for by the fact of the hurricane having 
' begun there during the night. The flatness of the surface in 
' that Island presented no obstacle to the wind, which must, 
' however, I think have been in itself more furious than with us. 
' No other island has suffered considerably. 

• I have told both my Uncle and Anthony that I have 
' given you the details of our recent history ; — which are not 
' so pleasant that I should wish to write them again. Perhaps 
1 you will be good enough to let them see this, as soon as 
' you and my Father can spare it. * * * I am ever, dearest 

• Mother, — your grateful and affectionate, 

• John Sterling. ' 

This Letter, I observe, is dated 28th August 1831 ; which 
is otherwise a day of mark to the world and me, — the Poet 
Goethe's last birthday. While Sterling sat in the Tropical 
solitudes, penning this history, little European Weimar had its 
carriages and state-carriages busy on the streets, and was astir 
with compliments and visiting-cards, doing its best, as heretofore, 
on behalf of a remarkable day ; and was not, for centuries or 
tens of centuries, to see the like of it again ! — 



A CATASTROPHE. 75 

At Brighton, the hospitable home of those Munroes, our 
friends continued for above two months. Their first child, 
Edward, as above noticed, was born here, '14th October 1831 ;' 
— and now the poor lady, safe from all her various perils, could 
return to Colonarie under good auspices. 

It was in this year that I first heard definitely of Sterling 
as a contemporary existence ; and laid-up some note and out- 
line of him in my memory, as of one whom I might yet hope 
to know. John Mill, Mrs. Austin and perhaps other friends, 
spoke of him with great affection and much pitying admira- 
tion ; and hoped to see him home again, under better omens, 
from over the seas. As a gifted amiable being, of a certain 
radiant tenuity and velocity, too thin and rapid and diffusive, 
in danger of dissipating himself into the vague, or alas into 
death itself: it was so that, like a spot of bright colours, rather 
than a portrait with features, he hung occasionally visible in 
my imagination. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A CATASTROPHE. 

The ruin of his house had hardly been repaired, when there 
arrived out of Europe tidings which smote as with a still more 
fatal hurricane on the four corners of his inner world, and 
awoke all the old thunders that lay asleep on his horizon there. 
Tidings, at last of a decisive nature, from Gibraltar and the 
Spanish democrat adventure. This is what the Newspapers 
had to report, — the catastrophe at once, the details by degrees, 
— from Spain concerning that affair, in the beginning of the 
new year 1832. 

Torrijos, as we have seen, had hitherto accomplished as 
good as nothing, except disappointment to his impatient fol- 
lowers, and sorrow and regret to himself. Poor Torrijos, on 
arriving at Gibraltar with his wild band, and coming into con- 
tact with the rough fact, had found painfully how much his ima- 
gination had deceived him. The fact lay round him haggard 
and ironbound ; flatly refusing to be handled according to his 
scheme of it. No Spanish soldiery nor citizenry showed the 
least disposition to join him ; on the contrary the official 



76 JOHN STERLING. 

Spaniards of that coast seemed to have the watchfulest eye on 
all his movements, nay it was conjectured they had spies in 
Gibraltar who gathered his very intentions and betrayed them. 
This small project of attack, and then that other, proved futile, 
or was abandoned before the attempt. Torrijos had to lie pain- 
fully within the lines of Gibraltar, — his poor followers reduced 
to extremity of impatience and distress ; the British Governor 
too, though not unfriendly to him, obliged to frown. As for the 
young Cantabs, they, as was said, had wandered a little over 
the South border of romantic Spain; had perhaps seen Seville, 
Cadiz, with picturesque views, since not with belligerent ones ; 
and their money being done, had now returned home. So had 
it lasted for eighteen months. 

The French Three Days breaking out had armed the Guer- 
rillero Mina, armed all manner of democratic guerrieros and 
guerrilleros ; and considerable clouds of Invasion, from Spanish 
exiles, hung minatory over the North and North-East of Spain, 
supported by the new-born French Democracy, so far as pri- 
vately possible. These Torrijos had to look upon with inex- 
pressible feelings, and take no hand in supporting from the 
South ; these also he had to see brushed away, successively 
abolished by official generalship ; and to sit within his lines, in 
the painfulest manner, unable to do anything. The fated, gal- 
lant-minded, but too headlong man. At length the British Go- 
vernor himself was obliged, in official decency, and as is thought 
on repeated remonstrance from his Spanish official neighbours, 
to signify how indecorous, improper and impossible it was to 
harbour within one's lines such explosive preparations, once 
they were discovered, against allies in full peace with us, — the 
necessity, in fact, there was for the matter ending. It is said, 
he offered Torrijos and his people passports, and British pro- 
tection, to any country of the world except Spain : Torrijos did 
not accept the passports ; spoke of going peaceably to this 
place or to that ; promised at least, what he saw and felt to be 
clearly necessary, that he would soon leave Gibraltar. And he 
did soon leave it ; he and his, Boyd alone of the Englishmen 
being now with him. 

It was on the last night of November 1831, that they all 
set forth ; Torrijos with Fifty-five companions ; and in two 
small vessels committed themselves to their nigh-desperate for- 



A CATASTROPHE. 77 

tune. No sentry or official person had noticed them ; it was 
from the Spanish Consul, next morning, that the British Go- 
vernor first heard they were gone. The British Governor knew 
nothing of them ; but apparently the Spanish officials were 
much better informed. Spanish guardships, instantly awake, 
gave chase to the two small vessels, which were making all sail 
towards Malaga ; and, on shore, all manner of troops and de- 
tached parties were in motion, to render a retreat to Gibraltar 
by land impossible. 

Crowd all sail for Malaga, then ; there perhaps a regiment 
will join us ; there, — or if not, we are but lost ! Fancy need 
not paint a more tragic situation than that of Torrijos, the un- 
fortunate gallant man, in the gray of this morning, first of De- 
cember 1 83 1, — his last free morning. Noble game is afoot, 
afoot at last ; and all the hunters have him in their toils. — The 
guardships gain upon Torrijos ; he cannot even reach Malaga ; 
has to run ashore at a place called Fuengirola, not far from 
that city ; — the guardships seizing his vessels, so soon as he is 
disembarked. The country is all up ; troops scouring the coast 
everywhere : no possibility of getting into Malaga with a party 
of Fifty-five. He takes possession of a farmstead (Ingles, the 
place is called) ; barricades himself there, but is speedily be- 
leaguered with forces hopelessly superior. He demands to 
treat ; is refused all treaty ; is granted six hours to consider, 
shall then either surrender at discretion, or be forced to do it. 
Of course he does it having no alternative ; and enters Malaga 
a prisoner, all his followers prisoners. Here had the Torrijos 
Enterprise, and all that was embarked upon it, finally arrived. 

Express is sent to Madrid ; express instantly returns : 
" Military execution on the instant ; give them shriving if they 
" want it ; that done, fusillade them all." So poor Torrijos 
and his followers, the whole Fifty-six of them, Robert Boyd in- 
cluded, meet swift death in Malaga. In such manner rushes- 
down the curtain on them and their affair ; they vanish thus 
on a sudden ; rapt away as in black clouds of fate. Poor Boyd, 
Sterling's cousin, pleaded his British citizenship ; to no pur- 
pose : it availed only to his dead body, this was delivered to 
the British Consul for interment, and only this. Poor Madam 
Torrijos, hearing, at Paris where she now was, of her husband's 
capture, hurries towards Madrid to solicit mercy ; whither also 



yS JOHN STERLING. 

messengers from Lafayette and the French Government were 
hurrying, on the like errand : at Bayonne, news met the poor 
lady that it was already all over, that she was now a widow, 
and her husband hidden from her for ever. — Such was the 
handsel of the new year 1832 for Sterling in his West-Indian 
solitudes. 

Sterling's friends never heard of these affairs ; indeed we 
were all secretly warned not to mention the name of Torrijos 
in his hearing, which accordingly remained strictly a forbidden 
subject. His misery over this catastrophe was known, in his 
own family, to have been immense. He wrote to his Brother 
Anthony : "I hear the sound of that musketry ; it is as if the 
bullets were tearing my own brain." To figure in one's sick 
and excited imagination such a scene of fatal man-hunting, lost 
valour hopelessly captured and massacred ; and to add to it, 
that the victims are not men merely, that they are noble and 
dear forms knoAvn lately as individual friends : what a Dance 
of the Furies and wild-pealing Dead-march is this, for the mind 
of a loving, generous and vivid man ! Torrijos getting ashore 
at Fuengirola ; Robert Boyd and others ranked to die on the 
esplanade at Malaga — Nay had not Sterling, too, been the in- 
nocent yet heedless means of Boyd's embarking in this enter- 
prise ? By his own kinsman poor Boyd had been witlessly 
guided into the pitfalls. " I hear the sound of that musketry ; 
it is as if the bullets were tearing my own brain !" 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PAUSE. 

These thoughts dwelt long with Sterling ; and for a good 
while, I fancy, kept possession of the. proscenium of his mind ; 
madly parading there, to the exclusion of all else, — colouring 
all else with their own black hues. He was young, rich in the 
power to be miserable or otherwise ; and this was his first grand 
sorrow which had now fallen upon him. 

An important spiritual crisis, coming at any rate in some 
form, had hereby suddenly in a very sad form come. No doubt, 



PAUSE. 79 

as youth was passing into manhood in these Tropical seclu- 
sions, and higher wants were awakening in his mind, and years 
and reflection were adding new insight and admonition, much 
in his young way of thought and action lay already under ban 
with him, and repentances enough over many things were not 
wanting. But here on a sudden had all repentances, as it were, 
dashed themselves together into one grand whirlwind of re- 
pentance ; and his past life was fallen wholly as into a state of 
reprobation. A great remorseful misery had come upon him. 
Suddenly, as Math a sudden lightning-stroke, it had kindled into 
conflagration all the ruined structure of his past life ; such ruin 
had to blaze and flame round him, in the painfulest manner, 
till it went out in black ashes. His democratic philosophies, 
and mutinous radicalisms, already falling doomed in his thoughts, 
had reached their consummation and final condemnation here. 
It was all so rash, imprudent, arrogant, all that ; false, or but 
half-true ; inapplicable wholly as a rule of noble conduct ; — and 
it has ended thus. Wo on it ! Another guidance must be 
found in life, or life is impossible ! — 

It is evident, Sterling's thoughts had already, since the old 
days of the 'black dragoon,' much modified themselves. We 
perceive that, by mere increase of experience and length of 
time, the opposite and much deeper side of the question, which 
also has its adamantine basis of truth, was in turn coming into 
play ; and in fine that a Philosophy of Denial, and world illu- 
minated merely by the flames of Destruction, could never have 
permanently been the resting-place of such a man. Those pil- 
grimings to Coleridge, years ago, indicate deeper wants begin- 
ning to be felt, and important ulterior resolutions becoming 
inevitable for him. If in your own soul there is any tone of 
the ' Eternal Melodies,' you cannot live forever in those poor 
outer, transitory grindings and discords ; you will have to 
struggle inwards and upwards, in search of some diviner home 
for yourself !— Coleridge's prophetic moonshine, Torrijos's sad 
tragedy : those were important occurrences in Sterling's life. 
But, on the whole, there was a big Ocean for him, with im- 
petuous Gulf-streams, and a doomed voyage in quest of the 
Atlantis, before either of those arose as lights on the horizon. 
As important beacon-lights let us count them nevertheless ; — ■ 
signal-dates they form to us, at lowest. We may reckon this 



8o JOHN STERLING. 

Tnrrijos tragedy the crisis of Sterling's history ; the 
point, which modified, in the most important and by no ju TP ** r 
wholly in the most favourable manner, all the subsequent stages 
of it. 

Old Radicalism and mutinous audacious Ethnicism having 
thus fallen to wreck, and a mere black world of misery and re- 

I morse now disclosing itself, whatsoever of natural piety to God 

and man, whatsoever of pity and reverence, of awe and devout 
hope was in Sterling's heart now awoke into new activity ; and 
strove for some due utterance and predominance. His Letters, 
in these months, speak of earnest religious studies and efforts ; 
— of attempts by prayer and longing endeavour of all kinds, to 
struggle his way into the temple, if temple there were, and there 
find sanctuary. 1 The realities were grown so haggard; life a 
field of black ashes, if there rose no temple anywhere on it ! 
Why, like a fated Orestes, is man so whipt by the Furies, and 
driven madly hither and thither, if it is not even that he may 
seek some shrine, and there make expiation and find deliver- 
ance ? 

In these circumstances, what a scope for Coleridge's philo- 
sophy, above all ! " If the bottled moonshine be actually sub- 
" stance ? Ah, could one but believe in a Church while finding 
" it incredible ! What is faith ; what is conviction, credibility, 
" insight ? Can a thing be at once known for true, and known 
" for false ? ' Reason,' 'understanding :' is there, then, such an 
" internecine war between these two ? It was so Coleridge ima- 
" gined it, the wisest of existing men I" — No, it is not an easy 
matter (according to Sir Kenelm Digby), this of getting-up your 
' astral spirit' of a thing, and setting it in action, when the thing 
itself is. well burnt to ashes. Poor Sterling ; poor sons of Adam 
in general, in this sad age of cobwebs, worn-out symbolisms, 
reminiscences and simulacra ! Who can tell the struggles of 
poor Sterling, and his pathless wanderings through these things ! 
Long afterwards, in speech with his brother, he compared his 
case in this time to that of "a young lady who has tragically 
" lost her lover, and is willing to be half- hoodwinked into a 
" convent, or in any noble or quasi-noble way to escape from 
" a world which has become intolerable." 

1 Hare, pp. xliii.-xlvi. 



BONN; HERSTMONCEUX. 8l 

; yoi mg the summer of 1832, I find traces of attempts to- 
wc Anti-Slavery Philanthropy ; shadows of extensive schemes 
in that direction. Half-desperate outlooks, it is likely, towards 
the refuge of Philanthropism, as a new chivalry of life. These 
took no serious hold of so clear an intellect ; but they hovered 
now and afterwards as day-dreams, when life otherwise was 
shorn of aim ; — mirages in the desert, which are found not to 
be lakes when you put your bucket into them. One thing was 
clear, the sojourn in St. Vincent was not to last much longer. 

Perhaps one might get some scheme raised into life, in 
Downing Street, for universal Education to the Blacks, prepa- 
ratory to emancipating them ? There were a noble work for a 
man ! Then again poor Mrs. Sterling's health, contrary to his 
own, did not agree with warm moist climates. And again &c. 
&c. These were the outer surfaces of the measure ; the uncon- 
scious pretext under which it showed itself to Sterling and was 
shown by him : but the inner heart and determining cause of 
it (as frequently in Sterling's life, and in all our lives) was not 
these. In brief, he had had enough of St. Vincent. The strang- 
ling oppressions of his soul were too heavy for him there. So- 
lution lay in Europe, or might lie ; not in these remote solitudes 
of the sea, — where no shrine or saint's well is to be looked for, 
no communing of pious pilgrims journeying together towards a 
shrine. 



CHAPTER XV. 

BONN ; HERSTMONCEUX. 

After a residence of perhaps fifteen months Sterling quitted 
St. Vincent, and never returned. He reappeared at his Father's 
house, to the joy of English friends, in August 1832 ; well im- 
proved in health, and eager for English news ; but, beyond 
vague schemes and possibilities, considerably uncertain what 
was next to be done. 

After no long stay in this scene, — finding Downing Street 
dead as stone to the Slave-Education and to all other schemes, 
— he went across, with his wife and child, to Germany ; pur- 
posing to make not so much a tour as some loose ramble, or 
desultory residence in that country, in the Rhineland first of all. 

G 



I 



82 JOHN STERLING. 

Here was to be hoped the picturesque in scenery, which he 
much affected ; here the new and true in speculation, which he 
inwardly longed for and wanted greatly more ; at all events, 
here as readily as elsewhere might a temporary household be 
struck up, under interesting circumstances. — -I conclude he went 
across in the Spring of 1833; perhaps directly after Arthur 
Coningsby had got through the press. This Novel, which, as 
we have said, was begun two or three years ago, probably on 
his cessation from the Atlienceum, and was mainly finished, I 
think, before the removal to St. Vincent, had by this time fallen 
as good as obsolete to his own mind ; and its destination now, 
whether to the press or to the fire, was in some sort a matter 
at once of difficulty and of insignificance to him. At length de- 
ciding for the milder alternative, he had thrown in some com- 
pleting touches here and there, — especially, as I conjecture, a 
proportion of Colridgean moonshine at the end ; and so sent it 
forth. 

It was in the sunny days, perhaps in May or June of this 
year, that Arthur Coningsby reached my own hand, far off amid 
the. heathy wildernesses; sent by John Mill: and I can still 
recollect the pleasant little episode it made in my solitude there. 
The general impression it left on me, which has never since 
been renewed by a second reading in whole or in part, was the 
certain prefigurement to myself, more or less distinct, of an opu- 
lent, genial and sunny mind, but misdirected, disappointed, ex- 
perienced in misery ; — nay crude and hasty ; mistaking for a 
solid outcome from its woes what was only to me a gilded va- 
cuity. The hero an ardent youth, representing Sterling himself, 
plunges into life such as we now have it in these anarchic times, 
with the radical, utilitarian, or mutinous heathen theory, which 
is the readiest for inquiring souls ; finds, by various courses of 
adventure, utter shipwreck in this ; lies broken, very wretched : 
that is the tragic nodus, or apogee of his life-course. In this 
mood of mind, he clutches desperately towards some new me- 
thod (recognisable as Coleridge's) of laying hand again on the 
old Church, which has hitherto been extraneous and as if non- 
extant to his way of thought ; makes out, by some Coleridgean 
legerdemain, that there actually is still a Church for him ; that 
this extant Church, which he long took for an extinct shadow, 
is not such, but a substance ; upon which he can anchor him- 



BONN; HERSTMONCEUX. 83 

self amid the storms of fate; — and he does so, even taking 
orders in it, I think. Such could by no means seem to me the 
true or tenable solution. Here clearly, struggling amid the tu- 
mults, was a lovable young fellow-soul ; who had by no means 
yet got to land ; but of whom much might be hoped, if he ever 
did. Some of the delineations are highly pictorial, flooded with 
a deep ruddy effulgence ; betokening much wealth, in the crude 
or the ripe state. The hope of perhaps, one day, knowing Ster- 
ling., was welcome and interesting to me. Arthur Coningsby, 
struggling imperfectly in a sphere high above circulating-library 
novels, gained no notice whatever in that quarter ; gained, I 
suppose in a few scattered heads, some such recognition as the 
above ; and there rested. Sterling never mentioned the name 
of it in my hearing, or would hear it mentioned. 

In those very days while Arthur Coningsby was getting read 
amid the Scottish moors, 'in June 1833/ Sterling, at Bonn in 
the Rhine-country, fell-in with his old tutor and friend, the Re- 
verend Julius Hare ; one with whom he always delighted to 
communicate, especially on such topics as then altogether occu- 
pied him. A man of cheerful serious character, of much ap- 
proved accomplishment, of perfect courtesy ; surely of much 
piety, in all senses of that word. Mr. Hare had quitted his scho- 
lastic labours and distinctions, some time ago ; the call or op- 
portunity for taking orders having come ; and as Rector of 
Herstmonceux in Sussex, a place patrimonially and otherwise 
endeared to him, was about entering, under the best omens, on 
a new course of life. He was now on his return from Rome, 
and a visit of some length to Italy. Such a meeting could not 
but be welcome and important to Sterling in such a mood. 
They had much earnest conversation, freely communing on the 
highest matters ; especially of Sterling's purpose to undertake 
the clerical profession, in which course his reverend friend could 
not but bid him good speed. 

It appears, Sterling already intimated his intention to be- 
come a clergyman : He would study theology, biblicalities, per- 
fect himself in the knowledge seemly or essential for his new 
course ; — read diligently ' for a year or two in some good Ger- 
man University,' then seek to obtain orders : that was his plan. 
To which Mr. Hare gave his hearty Eugej adding that if his 



84 JOHN STERLING. 

own curacy happened then to be vacant, he should be well 
pleased to have Sterling in that office. So they parted. 

' A year or two' of serious reflection • in some good German 
University, ' or anywhere in the world, might have thrown much 
elucidation upon these confused stragglings and purposings of 
Sterling's, and probably have spared him some confusion in his 
subsequent life. But the talent of waiting was, of all others, the 
one he wanted most. Impetuous velocity, all-hoping headlong 
alacrity, what we must call rashness and impatience, character- 
ised him in most of his important and unimportant procedures ; 
from the purpose to the execution there was usually but one big 
leap with him. A few months after Mr. Hare was gone, Ster- 
ling wrote that his purposes were a little changed by the late 
meeting at Bonn ; that he now longed to enter the Church 
straightway : that if the Herstmonceux Curacy was still vacant, 
and the Rector's kind thought towards him still held, he would 
instantly endeavour to qualify himself for that office. 

Answer being in the affirmative on both heads, Sterling re- 
turned to England ; took orders, — ' ordained deacon at Chi- 
chester on Trinity Sunday in 1834' (he never became techni- 
cally priest) : — and so, having fitted himself and family with a 
reasonable house, in one of those leafy lanes in quiet Herstmon- 
ceux, on the edge of Pevensey Level, he commenced the duties 
of his Curacy. 

The bereaved young lady has taken the veil, then ! Even so. 
" Life is growing all so dark and brutal ; must be redeemed 
" into human, if it will continue life. Some pious heroism, to 
" give a human colour to life again, on any terms," — even on 
impossible ones ! 

To such length can transcendental moonshine, cast by some 
morbidly radiating Coleridge into the chaos of a fermenting life, 
act magically there, and produce divulsions and convulsions and 
diseased developments. So dark and abstruse, without lamp or 
authentic finger-post, is the course of pious genius towards the 
Eternal Kingdoms grown. No fixed highway more ; the old 
spiritual highways and recognised paths to the Eternal, now all 
torn-up and flung in heaps, submerged in unutterable boiling 
mud-oceans of Hypocrisy and Unbelievability, of brutal living 
Atheism and damnable dead putrescent Cant : surely a tragic 



BONN; HERSTMONCEUX. 85 

pilgrimage for all mortals ; Darkness, and the mere shadow of 
Death, enveloping all things from pole to pole ; and in the 
raging gulf-currents, offering us will-o'-wisps for loadstars, — in- 
timating that there are no stars, nor ever were, except certain 
Old-Jew ones which have now gone out. Once more, a tragic 
pilgrimage for all mortals ; and for the young pious soul, winged 
with genius, and passionately seeking land, and passionately 
abhorrent of floating carrion withal, more tragical than for any ! 
— A pilgrimage we must all undertake nevertheless, and make 
the best of with our respective means. Some arrive; a glorious 
few : many must be lost, — go down upon the floating wreck 
which they took for land. Nay, courage ! These also, so far 
as there was any heroism in them, have bequeathed their life as a 
contribution to us, have valiantly laid their bodies in the chasm 
for us : of these also there is no ray of heroism lost, — and, on 
the whole, what else of them could or should be ' saved' at any 
time ? Courage, and ever Forward ! 

Concerning this attempt of Sterling's to find sanctuary in 
the old Church, and desperately grasp the hem of her garment 
in such manner, there will at present be many opinions : and 
mine must be recorded here in flat reproval of it, in mere pity- 
ing condemnation of it, as a rash, false, unwise and unpermitted 
step. Nay, among the evil lessons of his Time to poor Sterling, 
I cannot but account this the worst ; properly indeed, as we 
may say, the apotheosis, the solemn apology and consecration, 
of all the evil lessons that were in it to him. Alas, if we did 
remember the divine and awful nature of God's Truth, and had 
not so forgotten it as poor doomed creatures never did before, 
— should we, durst we in our most audacious moments, think 
of wedding it to the world's Untruth, which is also, like all un- 
truths, the Devil's ? Only in the world's last lethargy can such 
things be done, and accounted safe and pious ! Fools ! "Do 
you think the Living God is a buzzard idol," sternly asks Milton, 
that you dare address Him in this manner ? — Such darkness, 
thick sluggish clouds of cowardice and oblivious baseness, have 
accumulated on us : thickening as if towards the eternal sleep ! 
It is not now known, what never needed proof or statement 
before, that Religion is not a doubt; that it is a certainty, — or 
else a mockery and horror. That none or all of the many things 
we are in doubt about, and need to have demonstrated and ren- 



I 



86 JOHN STERLING. 

dered probable, can by any alchymy be made a ■ Religion' for 
us ; but are and must continue a baleful, quiet or unquiet, Hy- 
pocrisy for us ; and bring — salvatio?t, do we fancy ? I think, it 
is another thing they will bring, and are, on all hands, visibly 
bringing, this good while ! — 

The time, then, with its deliriums, has done its worst for 
poor Sterling. Into deeper aberration it cannot lead him ; this 
is the crowning error. Happily, as beseems the superlative of 
errors, it was a very brief, almost a momentary one. In June 
1 834 Sterling dates as installed at Herstmonceux ; and is fling- 
ing, as usual, his whole soul into the business ; successfully so 
far as outward results could show : but already in September, 
he begins to have misgivings ; and in February following, quits 
it altogether, — the rest of his life being, in great part, a labori- 
ous effort of detail to pick the fragments of it off him, and be 
free of it in soul as well as in title. 

At this the extreme point of spiritual deflexion and depres- 
sion, when the world's madness, unusually impressive on such a 
man, has done its very worst with him, and in all future errors 
whatsoever he will be a little less mistaken, we may close the 
First Part of Sterling's Life. 



PART SECOND. 

CHAPTER I. 

CURATE. 

By Mr. Hare's account, no priest of any Church could more 
fervently address himself to his functions than Sterling now did; 
He went about among the poor, the ignorant, and those that 
had need of help ; zealously forwarded schools and benefi- 
cences ; strove, with his whole might, to instruct and aid who- 
soever suffered consciously in body, or still worse unconsciously 
in mind. He had charged himself to make the Apostle Paul 
his model ; the perils and voyagings and ultimate martyrdom 
of Christian Paul, in those old ages, on the great scale, were to 
be translated into detail, and become the practical emblem of 
Christian Sterling on the coast of Sussex in this new age. ' It 
* would be no longer from Jerusalem to Damascus,' writes 
Sterling, ' to Arabia, to Derbe, Lystra, Ephesus, that he would 
' travel : but each house of his appointed Parish would be 
' to him what each of those great cities was, — a place 
' where he would bend has whole being, and spend his heart 
' for the conversion, purification, elevation of those under his 
' influence. The whole man would be forever at work for this 
' purpose ; head, heart, knowledge, time, body, possessions, all 
' would be directed to this end.' A high enough model set 
before one : — how to be realised ! — Sterling hoped to realise it, 
to struggle towards realising it, in some small degree. This is 
Mr. Hare's report of him : 

' He was continually devising some fresh scheme for im- 
' proving the condition of the Parish. His aim was to awaken 
' the minds of the people, to arouse their conscience, to call 
' forth their sense of moral responsibility, to make them feel 



88 JOHN STERLING. 

' their own sinfulness, their need of redemption, and thus lead 
' them to a recognition of the Divine Love by which that re- 
' demption is offered to us. In visiting them he was diligent 
' in all weathers, to the risk of his own health, which was greatly 
' impaired thereby ; and his gentleness and considerate care for 
' the sick won their affection ; so that, though his stay was 

• very short, his name is still, after a dozen years, cherished by 
'many.' 

How beautiful would Sterling be in all this ; rushing for- 
ward like a host towards victory ; playing and pulsing like sun- 
shine or soft lightning ; busy at all hours to perform his part 
in abundant and superabundant measure ! ' Of that which it 
1 was to me personally,' continues Mr. Hare, ' to have such a 
' fellow-labourer, to live constantly in the freest communion 
' with such a friend, I cannot speak. He came to me at a 

• time of heavy affliction, just after I had heard that the 
' Brother, who had been the sharer of all my thoughts and feel- 
' ings from childhood, had bid farewell to his earthly life at 
' Rome ; and thus he seemed given to me to make-up in some 
' sort for him whom I had lost. Almost daily did I look out 
' for his usual hour of coming to me, and watch his tall slender 
' form walking rapidly across the hill in front of my window ; 
' with the assurance that he was coming to cheer and brighten, 
' to rouse and stir me, to call me up to some height of feeling, 
' or down to some depth of thought. His lively spirit, respond- 
' ing instantaneously to every impulse of Nature and Art ; his 
' generous ardour in behalf of whatever is noble and true ; his 
' scorn of all meanness, of all false pretences and conventional 
' beliefs, softened as it was by compassion for the victims of 

• those besetting sins of a cultivated age ; his never-flagging 

• impetuosity in pushing onward to some unattained point of 
' duty or of knowledge : all this, along with his gentle, almost 
' reverential affectionateness towards his former tutor, rendered 
' my intercourse with him an unspeakable blessing ; and time 

• after time has it seemed to me that his visit had been like a 
' shower of rain, bringing down freshness and brightness on a 
' dusty roadside hedge. By him too the recollection of these 
' our daily meetings was cherished till the last.' 1 

There are many poor people still at Herstmonceux who 
1 Hare, xlviii. liv. lv. 



CURATE. 89 

affectionately remember him; Mr. Hare especially makes men- 
tion of one good man there, in his young days 'a poor cobbler,' 
and now advanced to a much better position, who gratefully 
ascribes this outward and the other improvements in his life to 
Sterling's generous encouragement and charitable care for him. 
Such was the curate-life at Herstmonceux. So, in those actual 
leafy lanes, on the edge of Pevensey Level, in this new age, did 
our poor New Paul (on hest of certain oracles) diligently study 
to comport himself, — and struggle with all his might not to be 
a moonshine shadow of the First Paul. 

It was in this summer of 1 834, — month of May, shortly 
after arriving in London, — that I first saw Sterling's Father. A 
stout broad gentleman of sixty, perpendicular in attitude, rather 
showily dressed, and of gracious, ingenious and slightly ela- 
borate manners. It was at Mrs. Austin's in Bayswater ; he 
was just taking leave as I entered, so our interview lasted only 
a moment : but the figure of the man, as Sterling's father, had 
already an interest for me, and I remember the time well. 
Captain Edward Sterling, as we formerly called him, had now 
quite dropt the military title, nobody even of his friends now 
remembering it ; and was known, according to his wish, in 
political and other circles, as Mr. Sterling, a private gentleman 
of some figure. Over whom hung, moreover, a kind of mys- 
terious nimbus as the principal or one of the principal writers 
in the Times, which gave an interesting chiaroscuro to his 
character in society. A potent, profitable, but somewhat ques- 
tionable position ; of which, though he affected, and sometimes 
with anger, altogether to disown it, and rigorously insisted on 
the rights of anonymity, he was not unwilling to take the 
honours too : the private pecuniary advantages were very un- 
deniable ; and his reception in the Clubs, and occasionally in 
higher quarters, was a good deal modelled on the universal 
belief in it. 

John Sterling at Herstmonceux that afternoon, and his 
Father here in London, would have offered strange contrasts to 
an eye that had seen them both. Contrasts, and yet concord- 
ances. They were two very different-looking men, and were 
following two very different modes of activity that afternoon. 
And yet with a strange family likeness, too, both in the men 



90 JOHN STERLING. 

and their activities ; the central impulse in each, the faculties 
applied to fulfil said impulse, not at all dissimilar, — as grew 
visible to me on farther knowledge. 



CHAPTER II. 

NOT CURATE. 

Thus it went on for some months at Herstmonceux ; but 
thus it could not last. We said there were already misgivings 
as to health &c. in September : l that was but the fourth month, 
for it had begun only in June. The like clouds of misgiving, 
flights of dark vapour, chequering more and more the bright 
sky of this promised land, rose heavier and rifer month after 
month ; till in February following, that is in the eighth month 
from starting, the sky had grown quite overshaded ; and poor 
Sterling had to think practically of departure from his promised 
land again, finding that the goal of his pilgrimage was not there. 
Not there, wherever it may be ! March again, therefore ; the 
abiding city, and post at which we can live and die, is still 
ahead of us, it would appear ! 

' Ill-health' was the external cause ; and, to all parties con- 
cerned, to Sterling himself I have no doubt as completely as to 
any, the one determining cause. Nor was the ill-health want- 
ing ; it was there in too sad reality. And yet properly it was 
not there as the burden ; it was there as the last ounce which 
broke the camel's back. I take it, in this as in other cases 
known to me, ill-health was not the primary cause but rather 
the ultimate one, the summing-up of innumerable far deeper 
conscious and unconscious causes, — the cause which could 
boldly show itself on the surface, and give the casting vote. 
Such was often Sterling's way, as one could observe in such 
cases : though the most guileless, undeceptive and transparent 
of men, he had a noticeable, almost childlike faculty of self- 
deception, and usually substituted for the primary determining 
motive and set of motives, some ultimate ostensible one, and 
gave that out to himself and others as the ruling impulse for 
important changes in life. As is the way with much more 

1 Hare, p. lvi. 



NOT CURATE. 91 

ponderous and deliberate men ; — as is the way, in a degree, 
with all men ! j£ — 

Enough, in February 183^ Sterling came up to London, 
to consult with his physicians, — and in fact in all ways to con- 
sider with himself and friends, — what was to be done in regard 
to this Herstmonceux business. The oracle of the physicians, 
like that of Delphi, was not exceedingly determinate : but it did 
bear, what was a sufficiently undeniable fact, that Sterling's con- 
stitution, with a tendency to pulmonary ailments, was ill-suited 
for the office of a preacher ; that total abstinence from preach- 
ing for a year or two would clearly be the safer course. To 
which effect he writes to Mr. Hare with a tone of sorrowful agi- 
tation ; gives-uphis clerical duties at Herstmonceux ; — and never 
resumed them there or elsewhere. He had been in the Church 
eight months in all : a brief section of his life, but an import- 
ant one, which coloured several of his subsequent years, and 
now strangely colours all his years in the memory of some. 

This we may account the second grand crisis of his His- 
tory. Radicalism, not long since, had come to its consumma- 
tion, and vanished from him in a tragic manner. "Not by 
Radicalism is the path to Human Nobleness for me !" And 
here now had English Priesthood risen like a sun, over the 
waste ruins and extinct volcanoes of his dead Radical world, 
with promise of new blessedness and healing under its wings ; 
and this too has soon found itself an illusion : " Not by Priest- 
hood either lies the way, then. Once more, where does the 
way lie !" — To follow illusions till they burst and vanish is the 
lot of all new souls who, luckily or lucklessly, are left to their 
own choice in starting on this Earth. The roads are many ; 
the authentic finger-posts are few, — never fewer than in this 
era, when in so many senses the waters are out. Sterling of 
all men had the quickest sense for nobleness, heroism and the 
human summum bonumj the liveliest headlong spirit of adven- 
ture and audacity ; few gifted living men less stubbornness of 
perseverance. Illusions, in his chase of the sicminum bonum, 
were not likely to be wanting ; aberrations, and wasteful 
changes of course, were likely to be many ! It is in the his- 
tory of such vehement, trenchant, far-shining and yet intrinsi- 
cally light and volatile souls, missioned into this epoch to seek 
their way there, that we best see what a confused epoch it is. 



92 JOHN STERLING. 

This clerical aberration, — for such it undoubtedly was in 
Sterling, — we have ascribed to Coleridge ; and do clearly think 
that had there been no Coleridge, neither had this been, — nor 
had English Puseyism or some other strange enough universal 
portents been. Nevertheless, let us say farther that it lay partly 
in the general bearing of the world for such a man. This battle, 
universal in our sad epoch of ' all old things passing away* 
against 'all things becoming new,' has its summary and ani- 
mating heart in that of Radicalism against Church ; there, as 
in its flaming core, and point of focal splendour, does the heroic 
worth that lies in each side of the quarrel most clearly disclose 
itself; and Sterling was the man, above many, to recognise 
such worth on both sides. Natural enough, in such a one, 
that the light of Radicalism having gone out in darkness for 
him, the opposite splendour should next rise as the chief, and 
invite his loyalty till it also failed. In one form or the other, 
such an aberration was not unlikely for him. But an aberra- 
tion, especially in this form, we may certainly call it. No man 
of Sterling's veracity, had he clearly consulted his own heart, 
or had his own heart been capable of clearly responding, and 
not been dazzled and bewildered by transient fantasies and 
theosophic moonshine, could have undertaken this function. 
His heart would have answered: " No, thou canst not. What 
" is incredible to thee, thou shalt not, at thy soul's peril, attempt 
" to believe ! — Elsewhither for a refuge, or die here. Go to 
" Perdition if thou must, — but not with a lie in thy mouth ; by 
" the Eternal Maker, no !" 

Alas, once more ! How are poor mortals whirled hither 
and thither in the tumultuous chaos of our era ; and, under the 
thick smoke-canopy which has eclipsed all stars, how do they 
fly now after this poor meteor, now after that ! — Sterling aban- 
doned his clerical office in February 1835 ; having held it, and 
ardently followed it, so long as we say, — eight calendar months 
in all. 

It was on this his February expedition to London that I 
first saw Sterling, — at the India House incidentally, one after- 
noon, where I found him in company with John Mill, whom I 
happened like himself to be visiting for a few minutes. The 
sight of one whose fine qualities I had often heard of lately, was 



NOT CURATE. 93 

interesting enough ; and, on the whole, proved not disappoint- 
ing, though it was the translation of dream into fact, that is of 
poetry into prose, and showed its unrhymed side withal. A 
loose, careless-looking, thin figure, in careless dim costume, sat, 
in a lounging posture, carelessly and copiously talking. I was 
struck with the kindly but restless swift-glancing eyes, which 
looked as if the spirits were all out coursing like a pack of merry 
eager beagles, beating every bush. The brow, rather slop- 
ing in form, was not of imposing character, though again the 
head was longish, which is always the best sign of intellect ; 
the physiognomy in general indicated animation rather than 
strength. 

We talked rapidly of various unmemorable things : I re- 
member coming on the Negroes, and noticing that Sterling's 
notions on the Slavery Question had not advanced into the 
stage of mine. In reference to the question whether an "en- 
gagement for life," on just terms, between parties who are fixed 
in the character of master and servant, as the Whites and the 
Negroes are, is not really better than one from day to day, — 
he said with a kindly jeer, "I would have the Negroes them- 
selves consulted as to that !" — and would not in the least be- 
lieve that the Negroes were by no means final or perfect judges 
of it. — His address, I perceived, was abrupt, unceremonious ; 
probably not at all disinclined to logic, and capable of dashing 
in upon you like a charge of cossacks, on occasion : but it was 
also eminently ingenious, social, guileless. We did all very well 
together : and Sterling and I walked westward in company, 
choosing whatever lanes or quietest streets there were, as far 
as Knightsbridge where our roads parted ; talking on moralities, 
theological philosophies ; arguing copiously, but except in opi- 
nion not disagreeing. 

In his notions on such subjects, the expected Coleridge cast 
of thought was very visible ; and he seemed to express it even 
with exaggeration, and in a fearless dogmatic manner. Identity 
of sentiment, difference of opinion : these are the known ele- 
ments of a pleasant dialogue. We parted with the mutual wish 
to meet again ; — which accordingly, at his Father's house and 
at mine, we soon repeatedly did ; and already, in the few days 
before his return to Herstmonceux, had laid the foundations of 
a frank intercourse, pointing towards pleasant intimacies both 



94 JOHN STERLING. 

with himself and with his circle, which in the future were abun- 
dantly fulfilled. His Mother, essentially and even professedly 
" Scotch," took to my Wife gradually with a most kind maternal 
relation ; his Father, a gallant showy stirring gentleman, the 
Magus of the Times, had talk and argument ever ready, was an 
interesting figure, and more and more took interest in us. We 
had unconsciously made an acquisition, which grew richer and 
wholesomer with every new year ; and ranks now, seen in the 
pale moonlight of memory, and must ever rank, among the pre- 
cious possessions of life. 

Sterling's bright ingenuity, and also his audacity, velocity 
and alacrity, struck me more and more. It was, I think, on the 
occasion of a party given one of these evenings at his Father's, 
where I remember John Mill, John Crawford, Mrs. Crawford, 
and a number of young and elderly figures of distinction, — that 
a group having formed on the younger side of the room, and 
transcendentalisms and theologies forming the topic, a number 
ofdeep things were said in abrupt conversational style, Sterling 
in the thick of it. For example, one sceptical figure praised the 
Church of England, in Hume's phrase, ' as a Church tending to 
keep-down fanaticism,' and recommendable for its very indiffer- 
ency; whereupon a transcendental figure urges him : "You are 
" afraid of the horse's kicking : but will you sacrifice all qualities 
" to being safe from that ? Then get a dead horse. None com- 
" parable to that for not kicking in your stable !" Upon which, 
a laugh ; with new laughs on other the like occasions ; — and at 
last, in the fire of some discussion, Sterling, who was unusually 
eloquent and animated, broke-out with this wild phrase, "I could 
" plunge into the bottom of Hell, if I were sure of finding the 
" Devil there and getting him strangled!" Which produced 
the loudest laugh of all ; and had to be repeated, on Mrs. Craw- 
ford's inquiry, to the house at large ; and, creating among the 
ciders a kind of silent shudder, — though we urged that the feat 
would really be a good investment of human industry, — checked 
or stopt these theologic thunders for the evening. I still re- 
member Sterling as in one of his most animated moods that 
evening. He probably returned to Herstmonceux next day, where 
he proposed yet to reside for some indefinite time. 

Arrived at Herstmonceux, he had not forgotten us. One of 
his Letters written there soon after was the following, which 



NOT CURATE. 95 

much entertained me, in various ways. It turns on a poor Book 
of mine, called Sartor Resartus j which was not then even a 
Book, but was still hanging desolately under bibliopolic diffi- 
culties, now in its fourth or fifth year, on the wrong side of the 
river, as a mere aggregate of Magazine Articles ; having at last 
been slit into that form, and lately completed so, and put to- 
gether into legibility. I suppose Sterling had borrowed it of me. 
The adventurous hunter spirit which had started such a be- 
mired Auerochs, or Urus of the German woods, and decided on 
chasing that as game, struck me not a little ; — and the poor 
Wood-Ox, so bemired in the forests, took it as a compliment 
rather : 

' To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London. 

' Herstmonceux near Battle, 29th May 1835. 
' My dear Carlyle, — I have now read twice, with care, 
' the wondrous account of Teufelsdrockh and his Opinions ; and 
» I need not say that it has given me much to think of. It falls- 
' in with the feelings and tastes which were, for years, the rul- 
' ing ones of my life ; but which you will not be angry with 
' me when I say that I am infinitely and hourly thankful for 
' having escaped from. Not that I think of this state of mind 

• as one with which I have no longer any concern. The sense 
' of a oneness of life and power in all existence ; and of a bound- 
' less exuberance of beauty around us, to which most men are 
' well-nigh dead, is a possession which no one that has ever en- 
' joyed it would wish to lose. When to this we add the deep 
' feeling of the difference between the actual and the ideal in 
' Nature, and still more in Man ; and bring in, to explain this, 
' the principle of duty, as that which connects us with a possible 
' Higher State, and sets us in progress towards it, — we have 
' a cycle of thoughts which was the whole spiritual empire of 

* the wisest Pagans, and which might well supply food for the 
' wide speculations and richly creative fancy of Teufelsdrockh, 
' or his prototype Jean Paul. 

' How then comes it, we cannot but ask, that these ideas, 
' displayed assuredly with no want of eloquence, vivacity or 
' earnestness, have found, unless I am much mistaken, so little 
' acceptance among the best and most energetic minds in this 
' country ? In a country where millions read the Bible, and 



96 JOHN STERLING. 

' thousands Shakspeare ; where Wordsworth circulates through 
1 book-clubs and drawing-rooms ; where there are innumerable 
' admirers of your favourite Burns ; and where Coleridge, by 
' sending from his solitude the voice of earnest spiritual instruc- 
' tion, came to be beloved, studied and mourned for, by no 

• small or careless school of disciples ? — To answer this ques- 
' tion would, of course, require more thought and knowledge 
' than I can pretend to bring to it. But there are some points 
' on which I will venture to say a few words. 

' In the first place, as to the form of composition, — which 
1 may be called, I think, the Rhapsodico-Reflective. In this the 
' Sartor Resartus resembles some of the master-works of human 
1 invention, which have been acknowledged as such by many 
1 generations ; and especially the works of Rabelais, Montaigne, 
' Sterne and Swift. There is nothing I know of in Antiquity 
1 like it. That which comes nearest is perhaps the Platonic 
' Dialogue. But of this, although there is something of the 
' playful and fanciful on the surface, there is in reality neither 
1 in the language (which is austerely determined to its end), 
' nor' in the method and progression of the work, any of that 
' headlong self-asserting capriciousness, which, if not discernible 

* in the plan of Teufelsdrockh's Memoirs, is yet plainly to be 
' seen in the structure of the sentences, the lawless oddity, and 
1 strange heterogeneous combination and allusion. The prin- 
1 ciple of this difference, observable often elsewhere in modern 
1 literature (for the same thing is to be found, more or less, in 
' many of our most genial works of imagination, — Don Quixote, 

* for instance, and the writings of Jeremy Taylor), seems to be 
1 that well-known one of the predominant objectivity of the 
« Pagan mind ; while among us the subjective has risen into 

• superiority, and brought with it in each individual a multitude 
' of peculiar associations and relations. These, as not explicable 

* from any one external principle assumed as a premiss by the 
1 ancient philosopher, were rejected from the sphere of his 

* aesthetic creation : but to us they all have a value and mean- 

• ing ; being connected by the bond of our own personality, and 

• all alike existing in that infinity which is its arena. 

1 But however this may be, and comparing the Teufels- 
1 drockhean Epopee only with those other modern works, — it is 
■ noticeable that Rabelais, Montaigne and Sterne have trusted 



NOT CURATE. 97 

' for the currency of their writings, in a great degree, to the use 
' of obscene and sensual stimulants. Rabelais, besides, was full 
' of contemporary and personal satire ; and seems to have been 
1 a champion in the great cause of his time, — as-was Montaigne 
' also, — that of the right of thought in all competent minds, un- 
' restrained by any outward authority. Montaigne, moreover, 
1 contains more pleasant and lively gossip, and more distinct 
' good-humoured painting of his own character and daily habits, 
' than any other writer I know. Sterne is never obscure, and 
' never moral ; and the costume of his subjects is drawn from 
' the familiar experience of his own time and country : and 
' Swift, again, has the same merit of the clearest perspicuity, 

• joined to that of the most homely, unaffected, forcible English. 
' These points of difference seem to me the chief ones which 
' bear against the success of the Sartor. On the other hand, 
' there is in Teufelsdrockh a depth and fervour of feeling, and 
' a power of serious eloquence, far beyond that of any of these 
' four writers ; and to which indeed there is nothing at all com- 
' parable in any of them, except perhaps now and then, and 
' very imperfectly, in Montaigne. 

• Of the other points of comparison there are two which I 
' would chiefly dwell on : and first as to the language. A good 
' deal of this is positively barbarous. " Environment," " ves- 
' tural," " stertorous/' "visualised," " complected," and others 
' to be found I think in the first twenty pages, — are words, so 
' far as I know, without any authority ; some of them contrary 
' to analogy ; and none repaying by their value the disadvant- 
' age of novelty. To these must be added new and erroneous 
' locutions ; "whole other tissues" for all the other, and similar 
'uses of the word whole; "orients" for pearls j "lucid" and 
' "lucent" employed as if they were different in meaning; 
' " hulls" perpetually for coverings, it being a word hardly 

• used, and then only for the husk of a nut ; "to insure a man 
' of misapprehension ;" "talented," a mere newspaper and hus- 
' tings word, invented, I believe, by O'Connell. 

• I must also mention the constant recurrence of some 

• words in a quaint and queer connection, which gives a gro- 

• tesque and somewhat repulsive mannerism to many sentences. 

• Oi these the commonest offender is " quite ;" which appears 
' in almost every page, and gives at first a droll kind of em- 

H 



98 JOHN STERLING. 

• phasis ; but soon becomes wearisome. " Nay," " manifold," 
1 "cunning enough significance," "faculty" (meaning a man's 
'.rational or moral power), "special," "not without," haunt 
' the reader as 'if in some uneasy dream which does not rise 

• to the dignity of nightmare. Some of these strange manner- 
' isms fall under the general head of a singularity peculiar, so 
' far as I know, to Teufelsdrockh. For instance, that of the 
' incessant use of a sort of odd superfluous qualification of his 
' assertions ; which seems to give the character of deliberate- 

• ness and caution to the style, but in time sounds like mere 

• trick or involuntary habit. "Almost" does more than yeo- 
' man's, almost slave's service in this way. Something similar 
' may be remarked of the use of the double negative by way 
' of affirmation. 

' Under this head, of language, may be mentioned, though 
' not with strict grammatical accuracy, two standing charac- 
' teristics of the Professor's style, — at least as rendered into 
' English: First, the composition of words, such as " snow- 
' and-rosebloom maiden :" an attractive damsel doubtless in 
' Germany, but, with all her charms, somewhat uncouth here. 
' " Life-vision" is another example ; and many more might be 
' found. To say nothing of the innumerable cases in which 
' the words are only intelligible as a compound term, though 
' not distinguished by hyphens. Of course- the composition of 
' words is sometimes allowable even in English : but the habit 
' of dealing with German seems to have produced, in the pages 

• before us, a prodigious superabundance of this form of ex- 
' pression ; which gives harshness and strangeness, where the 

• matter would at all events have been surprising enough. 
' Seco?idly, I object, with the same qualification, to the frequent 
' use of 'inversion j which generally appears as a transposition 
' of the two members of a clause, in a way which would 
' not have been practised in conversation. It certainly gives 
' emphasis and force, and often serves to point the meaning. 
' But a style may be fatiguing and faulty precisely by being 
' too emphatic, forcible and pointed ; and so straining the 
' attention to find its meaning, or the admiration to appreciate 
' its beauty. 

1 Another class of considerations connects itself with the 
1 heightened and plethoric fulness of the style : its accumu- 



NOT CURATE. 99 

' lation and contrast of imagery ; its occasional jerking and 
' almost spasmodic violence ; — and above all, the painful sub- 
' jective excitement, which seems the element and ground- 
' work even of every description of Nature ; often taking the 
1 shape of sarcasm or broad jest, but never subsiding into 
4 calm. There is also a point which I should think worth 
' attending to, were I planning any similar book : I mean the 
1 importance, in a work of imagination, of not too much dis- 
' turbing in the reader's mind the balance of the New and Old. 
' The former addresses itself to his active, the latter to his 
« passive faculty ; and these are mutually dependent, and must 

• co-exist in certain proportion, if you wish to combine his 
' sympathy and progressive exertion with willingness and ease 
1 of attention. This should be taken into account in forming 
' a style ; for of course it cannot be consciously thought of in 

• composing each sentence. 

1 But chiefly it seems important in determining the plan of 
' a work. If the tone of feeling, the line of speculation are 

• out of the common way, and sure to present some difficulty 
' to the average reader, then it would probably be desirable 
' to select, for the circumstances, drapery and accessories of 
' all kinds, those most familiar, or at least most attractive. 

• A fable of the homeliest purport, and commonest every-day 
' application, derives an interest and charm from its turning 
1 on the characters and acts of gods and genii, lions and foxes, 
' Arabs and Affghauns. On the contrary, for philosophic in- 

• quiry and truths of awful preciousness, I would select as my 
' personages and interlocutors beings with whose language 
' and " whereabouts" my readers would be familiar. Thus 
' did Plato in his Dialogues, Christ in his Parables. There- 
' fore it seems doubtful whether it was judicious to make a 
' German Professor the hero of Sartor. Berkeley began his 
' Sin's with tar-water ; but what can English readers be ex- 
' pected to make of Gukguk by way of prelibation to your 
' nectar and tokay ? The circumstances and details do not 

• flash with living reality on the minds of your readers, but, 
' on the contrary, themselves require some of that attention 
' and minute speculation, the whole original stock of which, in 

• the minds of most of them, would not be too much to enable 

• them to follow your views ot Man and Nature. In short, 



ioo JOHN STERLING. 

1 there is not a sufficient basis of the common to justify the 

• amount of peculiarity in the work. In a book of science, 
' these considerations would of course be inapplicable ; but 
1 then the whole shape and colouring of the book must be 
' altered to make it such ; and a man who wishes merely to 

• get at the philosophical result, or summary of the whole, will 
' regard the details and illustrations as so much unprofitable 

• surplusage. 

♦ The sense of strangeness is also awakened by the marvel- 
' Ions combinations, in which the work abounds to a degree 
' that the common reader must find perfectly bewildering. This 
' can hardly, however, be treated as a consequence of the 
' style j for the style in this respect coheres with, and springs 
' from, the whole turn and tendency of thought. The noblest 
' images are objects of a humorous smile, in a mind which 
' sees itself above all Nature and throned in the arms of an 
' Almighty Necessity ; while the meanest have a dignity, inas- 

• much as they are trivial symbols of the same one life to which 
' the great whole belongs. And hence, as I divine, the start- 
' ling whirl of incongruous juxtaposition, which of a truth must 
' to many readers seem as amazing as if the Pythia on the 
' tripod should have struck-up a drinking-song, or Thersites 
' had caught the prophetic strain of Cassandra. 

' All this, of course, appears to me true and relevant ; but 
1 I cannot help feeling that it is, after all, but a poor piece of 
' quackery to comment on a multitude of phenomena without 
' adverting to the principle which lies at the root, and gives 
' the true meaning to them all. Now this principle I seem 
' to myself to find in the state of mind which is attributed to 
' Teufelsdrockh ; in his state of mind, I say, not in his opin- 
1 ions, though these are, in him as in all men, most important, 
' — being one of the best indices to his state of mind. Now 

• what distinguishes him, not merely from the greatest and best 
' men who have been on earth for eighteen hundred years, but 
' from the whole body of those who have been working forwards 
' towards the good, and have been the salt and light of the 
' world, is this : That he does not believe in a God. Do 
' not be indignant, I am blaming no one ; — but if I write my 
' thoughts, I must write them honestly. 



NOT CURATE. ioi 

' Teufelsdrockh does not belong to the herd of sensual and 
thoughtless men ; because he does perceive in all Existence a 
unity of power ; because he does believe that this is a real 
power external to him and dominant to a certain extent over 
him, and does not think that he is himself a shadow in a world 
of shadows. He has a deep feeling of the beautiful, the good 
and the true ; and a faith in their final victory. 

' At the same time, how evident is the strong inward unrest, 
the Titanic heaving of mountain on mountain ; the storm-like 
rushing over land and sea in search of peace. He writhes 
and roars under his consciousness of the difference in himself 
between the possible and the actual, the hoped-for and the ex- 
istent. He feels that duty is the highest law of his own being; 
and knowing how it bids the waves be stilled into an icy fixed- 
ness and grandeur, he trusts (but with a boundless inward 
misgiving) that there is a principle of order which will reduce 
all confusion to shape and clearness. But wanting peace him- 
self, his fierce dissatisfaction fixes on all that is weak, corrupt 
and imperfect around him ; and instead of a calm and steady 
cooperation with all those who are endeavouring to apply the 
highest ideas as remedies for the worst evils, he holds himself 
aloof in savage isolation ; and cherishes (though he dare not 
own) a stern joy at the prospect of that Catastrophe which is 
to turn loose again the elements of man's social life, and give 
for a time the victory to evil ; — in hopes that each new con- 
vulsion of the world must bring us nearer to the ultimate re- 
storation of all things ; fancying that each may be the last. 
"Wanting the calm and cheerful reliance, which would be the 
spring of active exertion, he flatters his own distemper by per- 
suading himself that his own age and generation are peculiarly 
feeble and decayed; and would even perhaps be willing to 
exchange the restless immaturity of our self-consciousness, and 
the promise of its long throe-pangs, for the unawakened un- 
doubting simplicity of the world's childhood ; of the times in 
which there was all the evil and horror of our day, only with 
the difference that conscience had not arisen to try and con- 
demn it. In these longings, if they are Teufelsdrockh's, he 
seems to forget that, could we go back five thousand years, 
we should only have the prospect of travelling them again, and 
arriving at last at the same point at which we stand now. 



io2 JOHN STERLING. 

' Something of this state of mind I may say that I under- 
* stand ; for I have myself experienced it. And the root of the 
' matter appears to me : A want of sympathy with the great 
' body of those who are now endeavouring to guide and help 
' onward their fellow-men. And in what is this alienation 
' grounded ? It is, as I believe, simply in the difference on 
' that point : viz. the clear, deep, habitual recognition of a one 
' Living Personal God, essentially good, wise, true and holy, the 
1 Author of all that exists; and a reunion with whom is the only 
' end of all rational beings. This belief* * * \There follow 
now several pages on ' Personal God,' and other abstruse or in- 
deed properly unspeakable matters j these, and a general Post- 
script of qualifying purport, I will szppress ; extracting only 
the following fractions, as luminous or slightly significant to us:~\ 

' Now see the difference of Teufelsdrockh's feelings. At the 
' end of book hi. chap. 8, I find these words : " But whence? O 
' Heaven, whither? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only 
' that it is through mystery to mystery, from God to God. 

' We are stick stuff 
' As dreams are made of, and our little life 
' Is rounded with a sleep." 

' And this tallies with the whole strain of his character. What 
' we find everywhere, with an abundant use of the name of God, 
' is the conception of a formless Infinite whether in time or 
' space ; of a high inscrutable Necessity, which it is the chief 
' wisdom and virtue to submit to, which is the mysterious im- 
' personal base of all Existence, — shows itself in the laws of 
' every . separate being's nature; and for man in the shape of 
' duty. On the other hand, I affirm, we do know whence we 
' come and whither we go !' — 

* * * ' And in this state of mind, as there is no true sym- 
' pathy with others, just as little is there any true peace for our- 
' selves. There is indeed possible the unsympathising factitious 
' calm of Art, which we find in Goethe. But at what expense is 
' it bought? Simply, by abandoning altogether the idea of duty, 
' which is the great witness of our personality. And he attains 
' his inhuman ghastly calmness by reducing the Universe to a 
' heap of material for the idea of beauty to work on.' — 

■::■ * •;,- . -pj ie sum f a ji j nave been writing as to the con- 



NOT CURATE. 103 

' nection of our faith in God with our feeling towards men and 
' our mode of action, may of course be quite erroneous : but 
' granting its truth, it would supply the one principle which I 
' have been seeking for, in order to explain the peculiarities of 

• style in your account of Teufelsdrockh and his writings.' * * * 
' The life and works of Luther are the best comment I know of 
' on this doctrine of mine. 

* Reading over what I have written, I find I have not nearly 
' done justice to my own sense of the genius and moral energy 
' of the book ; but this is what you will best excuse. — Believe 

• me most sincerely and faithfully yours, John Sterling.' 

Here are sufficient points of ' discrepancy with agreement,' 
here is material for talk and argument enough ; and an expanse 
of free discussion open, which requires rather to be speedily 
restricted for convenience' sake, than allowed to widen itself 
into the boundless, as it tends to do ! — 

In all Sterling's Letters to myself and others, a large col- 
lection of which now lies before me, duly copied and indexed, 
there is, to one that knew his speech as well, a perhaps unusual 
likeness between the speech and the Letters ; and yet, for most 
part, with a great inferiority on the part of these. These, thrown 
off, one and all of them, without premeditation, and with most 
rapid-flowing pen, are naturally as like his speech as writing 
can well be ; this is their grand merit to us : but on the other 
hand, the want of the living tones, swift looks and motions, and 
manifold dramatic accompaniments, tells heavily, more heavily 
than common. What can be done with champagne itself, much 
more with soda-water, when the gaseous spirit is fled ! The 
reader, in any specimens he may see, must bear this in mind. 

Meanwhile these Letters do excel in honesty, in candour and 
transparency ; their very carelessness secures their excellence in 
this respect. And in another much deeper and more essential 
respect I must likewise call them excellent, — in their childlike 
goodness, in the purity of heart, the noble affection and fidelity 
they everywhere manifest in the writer. This often touchingly 
strikes a familiar friend in reading them ; and will awaken 
reminiscences (when you have the commentary in your own 
memory) which are sad and beautiful, and not without reproach 
to you on occasion. To all friends, and all good causes, this 



104 JOHN STERLING. 

man is true ; behind their back as before their face, the same 
man ! — Such traits of the autobiographic sort, from these Letters, 
as can serve to paint him or his life, and promise not to weary 
the reader, I must endeavour to select, in the sequel. 



CHAPTER III. 

BAYSWATER. 

Sterling continued to reside at Herstmonceux through the 
spriflg and summer ; holding by the peaceable retired house he 
still had there, till the vague future might more definitely shape 
itself, and better point-out what place of abode would suit him 
in his new circumstances. He made frequent brief visits to 
London ; in which I, among other friends, frequently saw him, 
our acquaintance at each visit improving in all ways. Like a 
swift dashing meteor he came into our circle ; coruscated among 
us, for a day or two, with sudden pleasant illumination ; then 
again suddenly withdrew, — we hoped, not for long. 

I suppose, he was full of uncertainties ; but undoubtedly 
was gravitating towards London. Yet, on the whole, on the sur- 
face of him, you saw no uncertainties ; far from that : it seemed 
always rather with peremptory resolutions, and swift express 
businesses, that he was charged. Sickly in body, the testimony 
said : but here always was a mind that gave you the impression 
of peremptory alertness, cheery swift decision, — of a health 
which you might have called exuberant. I remember dialogues 
with him, of that year ; one pleasant dialogue under the trees 
of the Park (where now, in 1851, is the thing called 'Crystal 
Palace'), with the June sunset flinging long shadows for us; 
the last of the Quality just vanishing for dinner, and the great 
night beginning to prophesy of itself. Our talk (like that of the 
foregoing Letter) was of the faults of my style, of my way of 
thinking, of my &c. &c. ; all which admonitions and remon- 
strances, so friendly and innocent, from this young junior-senior, 
I was willing to listen to, though unable, as usual, to get almost 
any practical hold of them. As usual, the garments do not fit 
you, you are lost in the garments, or you cannot get into them 
at all ; this is not your suit of clothes, it must be another's : — 



BAYS WATER. 105 

alas, these are not your dimensions, these are only the optical 
angles you subtend ; on the whole, you will never get measured 
in that way ! — 

Another time, of date probably very contiguous, I remember 
hearing Sterling preach. It was in some new College-chapel 
in Somerset-house (I suppose, what is now called King's Col- 
lege) ; a very quiet small place, the audience student-looking 
youths, with a few elder people, perhaps mostly friends of the 
preacher's. The discourse, delivered with a grave sonorous 
composure, and far surpassing in talent the usual run of ser- 
mons, had withal an air of human veracity as I still recollect, 
and bespoke dignity and piety of mind : but gave me 'the 
impression rather of artistic excellence than of unction or in- 
spiration in that kind. Sterling returned with us to Chelsea 
that day ; — and in the afternoon we went on the Thames Put- 
ney-ward together, we two with my Wife ; under the sunny 
skies, on the quiet water, and with copious cheery talk, the re- 
membrance of which is still present enough to me. 

This was properly my only specimen of Sterling's preach- 
ing. Another time, late in the same autumn, I did indeed 
attend him one evening to some Church in the City, — a big 
Church behind Cheapside, "built by Wren" as he carefully in- 
formed me ; — but there, in my wearied mood, the chief subject 
of reflection was the almost total vacancy of the place, and 
how an eloquent soul was preaching to mere lamps and prayer- 
books ; and of the sermon I retain no image. It came up in 
the way of banter, if he ever urged the duty of ' Church exten- 
sion,' which already he very seldom did and at length never, 
what a specimen we once had of bright lamps, gilt prayer-books, 
baize-lined pews, Wren-built architecture ; and how, in almost 
all directions, you might have fired a musket through the 
church, and hit no Christian life. A terrible outlook indeed for 
the Apostolic labourer in the brick-and-mortar line ! — 

In the Autumn of this same 1835, he removed permanently 
to London, whither all summer he had been evidently tending; 
took a house in Bayswater, an airy suburb, half town, half 
country, near his Father's, and within fair distance of his other 
friends and objects ; and decided to await there what the ultimate 
developments of his course might be. His house was in Orme 



lo6 JOHN STERLING. 

Square, close by the corner of that little place (which has only 
thi'ee sides of houses) ; its windows looking to the east : the 
Number was, and I believe still is, No. 5. A sufficiently com- 
modious, by no means sumptuous, small mansion ; where, with 
the means sure to him, he could calculate on finding adequate 
shelter for his family, his books and himself, and live in a 
decent manner, in no terror of debt, for one thing. His income, 
I suppose, was not large ; but he lived generally a safe distance 
within it ; and showed himself always as a man bountiful in 
money matters, and taking no thought that way. 

His study-room in this house was perhaps mainly the draw- 
ing-room ; looking out safe, over the little dingy grass-plot in 
front, and the quiet little row of houses opposite, with the huge 
dust-whirl of Oxford Street and London far enough ahead of you 
as back-ground, — as back-curtain, blotting-out only half your 
blue hemisphere with dust and smoke. On the right, you had 
the continuous growl of the Uxbridge Road and its wheels, 
coming as lullaby not interruption. Leftward and rearward, 
after some thin belt of houses, lay mere country ; bright sweep- 
ing green expanses, crowned by pleasant Hampstead, pleasant 
Harrow, with their rustic steeples rising against the sky. Here 
on winter evenings, the bustle of removal being all well ended, 
and family and books got planted in their new places, friends 
could find Sterling, as they often did, who was delighted to be 
found by them, and would give and take, vividly as few others, 
an hour's good talk at any time. 

His outlooks, it must be admitted, were sufficiently vague 
and overshadowed ; neither the past nor the future of a too 
joyful kind. Public life, in any professional form, is quite for- 
bidden ; to work with his fellows anywhere appears to be for- 
bidden : nor can the humblest solitary endeavour to work 
worthily as yet find an arena. How unfold one's little bit of 
talent ; and live, and not lie sleeping, while it is called Today? 
As Radical, as Reforming Politician in any public or private 
form, — not only has this, in Sterling's case, received tragical 
sentence and execution ; but the opposite extreme, the Church 
whither he had fled, likewise proves abortive : the Church also 
is not the haven for him at all. What is to be done ? Some- 
thing must be done, and soon, — under penalties. Whoever has 
received, on him there is an inexorable behest to give. "Fais 



BAYSWATER. 107 

ton fait, Do thy little stroke of work:" this is Nature's voice, 
and the sum of all the commandments, to each man ! 

A shepherd of the people, some small Agamemnon after his 
sort, doing what little sovereignty and guidance he can in his 
day and generation : such every gifted soul longs, and should 
long, to be. But how, in any measure, is the small kingdom 
necessary for Sterling to be attained? Not through newspapers 
and parliaments, not by rubrics and reading-desks : none of 
the sceptres offered in the world's marketplace, nor none of the 
crosiers there, it seems, can be the shepherd's-crook for this 
man. A most cheerful, hoping man ; and full of swift faculty, 
though much lamed, — considerably bewildered too ; and tending 
rather towards the wastes and solitary places for a home ; the 
paved world not being friendly to him hitherto ! The paved 
world, in fact, both on its practical and spiritual side, slams-to 
its doors against him ; indicates that he cannot enter, and even 
must not, — that it will prove a choke-vault, deadly to soul and 
to body, if he enter. Sceptre, crosier, sheepcrook is none there 
for him. 

There remains one other implement, the resource of all 
Adam's posterity that are otherwise foiled, — the Pen. It was 
evident from this point that Sterling, however otherwise beaten 
about, and set fluctuating, would gravitate steadily with all his 
real weight towards Literature. That he would gradually try 
with consciousness to get into Literature ; and, on the whole, 
never quit Literature, which was now all the world for him. 
Such is accordingly the sum of his history henceforth : such 
small sum, so terribly obstructed and diminished by circum- 
stances, is all we have realised from him. 

Sterling had by no means as yet consciously quitted the 
clerical profession, far less the Church as a creed. We have 
seen, he occasionally officiated still in these months, when a 
friend requested or an opportunity invited. Nay it turned out 
afterwards, he had, unknown even to his own family, during a 
good many weeks in the coldest period of next spring, when it 
was really dangerous for his health and did prove hurtful to it, 
— been constantly performing the morning service in some 
Chapel in Bayswater for a young clerical neighbour, a slight 
acquaintance of his, who was sickly at the time. So far as I 



io8 JOHN STERLING. 

know, this of the Bayswater Chapel in the spring of 1836, a 
feat severely rebuked by his Doctor withal, was his last actual 
service as a churchman. But the conscious life ecclesiastical 
still hung visibly about his inner unconscious and real life, for 
years to come ; and not till by slow degrees he had unwinded 
from him the wrappages of it, could he become clear about him- 
self, and so much as try heartily what his now sole course was. 
Alas, and he had to live all the rest of his days, as in continual 
flight for his very existence; 'ducking under like a poor un- 
' fledged partridge-bird,' as one described it, 'before the mower; 
' darting continually from nook to nook, and there crouching, to 
' escape the scythe of Death.' For Literature Proper there was 
but little left in such a life. Only the smallest broken fractions 
of his last and heaviest-laden years can poor Sterling be said to 
have completely lived. His purpose had risen before him 
slowly in noble clearness ; clear at last, — and even then the in- 
evitable hour was at hand. 

In those first London months, as always afterwards while it 
remained physically possible, I saw much of him ; loved him, 
as was natural, more and more ; found in him, many ways, a 
beautiful acquisition to my existence here. He was full of 
bright speech and argument ; radiant with arrowy vitalities, vi- 
vacities and ingenuities. Less than any man he gave you the 
idea of ill-health. Hopeful, sanguine ; nay he did not even 
seem to need definite hope, or much to form any ; projecting 
himself in aerial pulses like an aurora borealis, like a summer 
dawn, and filling all the world with present brightness for him- 
self and others. Ill-health ? Nay you found at last, it was the 
very excess of life in him that brought on disease. This rest- 
less play of being, fit to conquer the world, could it have been 
held and guided, could not be held. It had worn holes in the 
outer case of it, and there found vent for itself, — there, since 
not otherwise. 

In our many promenades and colloquies, which were of the 
freest, most copious and pleasant nature, religion often formed 
a topic, and perhaps towards the beginning of our intercourse 
was the prevailing topic. Sterling seemed much engrossed in 
matters theological, and led the conversation towards such ; 
talked often about Church, Christianity Anglican and other, 
how essential the belief in it to man ; then, on the other side, 



BAYS WATER, 109 

about Pantheism and suchlike ; — all in the Coleridge dialect, 
and with eloquence and volubility to all lengths. I remember 
his insisting often and with emphasis on what he called a "per- 
sonal God," and other high topics, of which it was not always 
pleasant to give account in the argumentative form, in a loud 
hurried voice, walking and arguing through the fields or streets. 
Though of warm quick feelings, very positive in his opinions, 
and vehemently eager to convince and conquer in such discus- 
sions, I seldom or never saw the least anger in him against me 
or any friend. When the blows of contradiction came too 
thick, he could with consummate dexterity whisk aside out of 
their way ; prick into his adversary on some new quarter ; or 
gracefully flourishing his weapon, end the duel in some hand- 
some manner. One angry glance I remember in him, and it 
was but a glance, and gone in a moment. " Flat Pantheism!" 
urged he once (which he would often enough do about this 
time), as if triumphantly, of something or other, in the fire of a 
debate, in my hearing : " It is mere Pantheism, that!" — "And 
suppose it were Pot-theism ?" cried the other : " If the thing is 
true !" — Sterling did look hurt at such flippant heterodoxy, for 
a moment. The soul of his own creed, in those days, was far 
other than this indifference to Pot or Pan in such departments 
of inquiry. 

To me his sentiments for most part were lovable and ad- 
mirable, though in the logical outcome there was everywhere 
room for opposition. I admired the temper, the longing to- 
wards antique heroism, in this young man of the nineteenth 
century ; but saw not how, except in some German-English 
empire of the air, he was ever to realise it on those terms. In 
fact, it became clear to me more and more that here was noble- 
ness of heart striving towards all nobleness ; here was ardent 
recognition of the worth of Christianity, for one thing ; but no 
belief in it at all, in my sense of the word belief, — no belief but 
one definable as mere theoretic moonshine, which would never 
stand the wind and weather of fact. Nay it struck me farther 
that Sterling's was not intrinsically, nor had ever been in the 
highest or chief degree, a devotional mind. Of course all ex- 
cellence in man, and worship as the supreme excellence, was 
part of the inheritance of this gifted man : but if called to de- 
fine him, I should say, Artist not Saint was the real bent of his 



no JOHN STERLING. 

being. He had endless admiration, but intrinsically rather a 
deficiency of reverence in comparison. Fear, with its corol- 
laries, on the religious side, he appeared to have none, nor ever 
to have had any. 

In short, it was a strange enough symptom to me of the be- 
wildered condition of the world, to behold a man of this tem- 
per, and of this veracity and nobleness, self-consecrated here, 
by free volition and deliberate selection, to be a Christian 
Priest ; and zealously struggling to fancy himself such in very 
truth. Undoubtedly a singular present fact ; — from which, as 
from their point of intersection, great perplexities and aberra- 
tions in the past, and considerable confusions in the future 
might be seen ominously radiating. Happily our friend, as I 
said, needed little hope. Today with its activities was always 
bright and rich to him. His unmanageable, dislocated, de- 
vastated world, spiritual or economical, lay all illuminated in 
living sunshine, making it almost beautiful to his eyes, and gave 
him no hypochondria. A richer soul, in the way of natural 
outfit for felicity, for joyful activity in this world, so far as his 
strength would go, was nowhere to be met with. 

The Letters which Mr. Hare has printed, Letters addressed, 
I imagine, mostly to himself, in this and the following year or 
two, give record of abundant changeful plannings and labour- 
ings, on the part of Sterling ; still chiefly in the theological de- 
partment. Translation from Tholuck, from Schleiermacher ; 
treatise on this thing, then on that, are on the anvil : it is a 
life of abstruse vague speculations, singularly cheerful and hope- 
ful withal, about Will, Morals, Jonathan Edwards, Jewhood, 
Manhood, and of Books to be written on these topics. Part 
of which adventurous vague plans, as the Translation from 
Tholuck, he actually performed ; other greater part, merging 
always into wider undertakings, remained plan merely. I 
remember he talked often about Tholuck, Schleiermacher, and 
others of that stamp ; and looked disappointed, though full of 
good nature, at my obstinate indifference to them and their 
affairs. 

His knowledge of German Literature, very slight at this 
time, limited itself altogether to writers on Church matters, — 
Evidences, Counter-Evidences, Theologies and Rumours of 



BAYSWATER. 1 1 1 

Theologies ; by the Tholucks, Schleiermachers, Neanders, and 
I know not whom. Of the true sovereign souls of that Litera- 
ture, the Goethes, Richters, S chillers, Lessings, he had as good 
as no knowledge ; and of Goethe in particular an obstinate 
misconception, with proper abhorrence appended, — which did 
not abate for several years, nor quite abolish itself till a very 
late period. Till, in a word, he got Goethe's works fairly read 
and studied for himself! This was often enough the course 
with Sterling in such cases. He had a most swift glance of re- 
cognition for the worthy and for the unworthy ; and was prone, 
in his ardent decisive way, to put much faith in it. "Such a 
one is a worthless idol ; not excellent, only sham-excellent :" 
here, on this negative side especially, you often had to admire 
how right he was ; — often, but not quite always. And he would 
maintain, with endless ingenuity, confidence and persistence, 
his fallacious spectrum to be a real image. However, it was 
sure to come all right in the end. Whatever real excellence he 
might misknow, you had but to let it stand before him, solicit- 
ing new examination from him : none surer than he to recog- 
nise it at last, and to pay it all his dues, with the arrears and 
interest on them. Goethe, who figures as some absurd high- 
stalking hollow playactor, or empty ornamental clockcase of an 
' Artist' so-called, in the Tale of the Onyx Ring, was in the 
throne of Sterling's intellectual world before all was done ; and 
the theory of ' Goethe's want of feeling,' want of &c. &c. ap- 
peared to him also abundantly contemptible and forgettable. 

Sterling's days, during this time as always, were full of oc- 
cupation, cheerfully interesting to himself and others ; though, 
the wrecks of theology so encumbering him, little fruit on the 
positive side could come of these labours. On the negative 
side they were productive ; and there also, so much of encum- 
brance requiring removal, before fruit could grow, there was 
plenty of labour needed. He looked happy as well as busy ; 
roamed extensively among his friends, and loved to have them 
about him, — chiefly old Cambridge comrades now settling into 
occupations in the world ; — and was felt by all friends, by my- 
self as by few, to be a welcome illumination in the dim whirl 
of things. A man of altogether social and human ways ; his 
I address everywhere pleasant and enlivening. A certain smile 
of thin but genuine laughter, we might say, hung gracefully 



112 JOHN STERLING. 

over all he said and did ; — expressing gracefully, according to 
the model of this epoch, the stoical pococurantism which is re- 
quired of the cultivated Englishman. Such laughter in him 
was not deep, but neither was it false (as lamentably happens 
often) ; and the cheerfulness it went to symbolise was hearty 
and beautiful, — visible in the silent zmsymbolised state in a still 
gracefuler fashion. 

Of wit, so far as rapid lively intellect produces wit, he had 
plenty, and did not abuse his endowment that way, being al- 
ways fundamentally serious in the purport of his speech : of 
what we call humour, he had some, though little ; nay of real 
sense for the ludicrous, in any form, he had not much for a man 
of his vivacity ; and you remarked that his laugh was limited 
in compass, and of a clear but not rich quality. To the like 
effect shone something, a kind of childlike half- embarrassed 
shimmer of expression, on his fine vivid countenance ; curiously 
mingling with its ardours and audacities. A beautiful childlike 
soul ! He was naturally a favourite in conversation, especially 
with all who had any funds for conversing : frank and direct, yet 
polite and delicate withal, — though at times too he could crackle 
with his dexterous petulances, making the air all like needles 
round you ; and there was no end to his logic when you excited 
it ; no end, unless in some form of silence on your part. Elderly 
men of reputation I have sometimes known offended by him : 
for he took a frank way in the matter of talk ; spoke freely out 
of him, freely listening to what others spoke, with a kind of 
" hail fellow well met" feeling ; and carelessly measured a man 
much less by his reputed account in the bank of wit, or in any 
other bank, than by what the man had to show for himself in 
the shape of real spiritual cash on the occasion. But withal 
there was ever a fine element of natural courtesy in Sterling ; 
his deliberate demeanour to acknowledged superiors was fine 
and graceful ; his apologies and the like, when in a fit of re- 
pentance he felt commanded to apologise, were full of naivety, 
and very pretty and ingenuous. 

His circle of friends was wide enough ; chiefly men of his 
own standing, o^d College friends many of them ; some of whom 
have now become universally known. Among whom the most 
important to him was Frederic Maurice, who had not long be- 
fore removed to the Chaplaincy of Guy's Hospital here, and 



BAYSWATER. 1 1 3 

was still, as he had long been, his intimate and counsellor. 
Their views and articulate opinions, I suppose, were now fast 
beginning to diverge ; and these went on diverging far enough : 
but in their kindly union, in their perfect trustful familiarity, 
precious to both parties, there never was the least break, but a 
steady, equable and duly increasing current to the end. One 
of Sterling's commonest expeditions, in this time, was a sally 
to the other side of London Bridge : " Going to Guy's today." 
Maurice, in a year or two, became Sterling's brother-in-law ; 
wedded Mrs. Sterling's younger sister, — a gentle excellent 
female soul ; by whom the relation was, in many ways, strength- 
ened and beautified for Sterling and all friends of the par- 
ties. With the Literary notabilities I think he had no acquaint- 
ance ; his thoughts indeed still tended rather towards a certain 
class of the Clerical ; but neither had he much to do with these ; 
for he was at no time the least of a tufthunter, but rather had 
a marked natural indifference to tufts. 

The Rev. Mr. Dunn, a venerable and amiable Irish gen- 
tleman, 'distinguished,' we were told, 'by having refused a 
bishopric :' and who was now living, in an opulent enough re- 
tirement, amid his books and philosophies and friends, in Lon- 
don, — is memorable to me among this clerical class : one of 
the mildest, beautifulest old men I have ever seen, — "like 
Fenelon," Sterling said : his very face, with its kind true smile, 
with its look of suffering cheerfulness and pious wisdom, was a 
sort of benediction. It is of him that Sterling writes, in the 
Extract which Mr. Hare, modestly reducing the name to an 
initial ' Mr. D.,' has given us :* ' Mr. Dunn, for instance ; the 
* defect of whose Theology, compounded as it is of the doctrine 
' of the Greek Fathers, of the Mystics and of Ethical Philo- 
' sophers, consists, — if I may hint a fault in one whose holiness, 
' meekness and fervour would have made him the beloved dis- 
' ciple of him whom Jesus loved, — in an insufficient apprehen- 
' sion of the reality and depth of Sin.' A characteristic 'de- 
fect' of this fine gentle soul. On Mr. Dunn's death, which 
occurred two or three years later, Sterling gave, in some veiled 
yet transparent form, in Blackwood' s Magazine, an affectionate 
and eloquent notice of him ; which, stript of the veil, was ex- 
cerpted into the Newspapers also. 2 

1 P. lxxviii. 2 Given in Hare (ii. 188-193). 

I 



H4 JOHN STERLING. 

Of Coleridge there was little said. Coleridge was now dead, 
not long since ; nor was his name henceforth much heard in 
Sterling's circle ; though on occasion, for a year or two to come, 
he would still assert his transcendent admiration, especially if 
Maurice were by to help. But he was getting into German, 
into various inquiries and sources of knowledge new to him, 
and his admirations and notions on many things were silently 
and rapidly modifying themselves. 

So, amid interesting human realities, and wide cloud-cano- 
pies of uncertain speculation, which also had their interests and 
their rainbow-colours to him, and could not fail in his life just 
now, did Sterling pass his year and half at Bayswater. Such 
vaporous speculations were inevitable for him at present ; but 
it was to be hoped they would subside by and by, and leave the 
sky clear. All this was but the preliminary to whatever work 
might lie in him : — and, alas, much other interruption lay be- 
tween him and that. 



CHAPTER IV. 

TO BORDEAUX. 

Among the quondam Cambridge acquaintances I have seen 
with Sterling about this time, one struck me, less from his quali- 
ties than from his name and genealogy : Frank Edgeworth, 
youngest son of the well-known Lovell Edgeworth, youngest 
brother of the celebrated Maria Edgeworth, the Irish Novelist. 
Frank was a short neat man ; of sleek, square, colourless face 
(resembling the Portraits of his Father), with small blue eyes 
in which twinkled curiously a joyless smile ; his voice was croaky 
and shrill, with a tone of shrewish obstinacy in it, and perhaps 
of sarcasm withal. A composed, dogmatic, speculative, exact, 
and not melodious man. He was learned in Plato and likewise 
in Kant ; well-read in philosophies and literatures ; entertained 
not creeds, but the Platonic or Kantean ghosts of creeds ; coldly 
sneering away from him, in the joyless twinkle of those eyes, 
in the inexorable jingle of that shrill voice, all manner of Tory- 
isms, superstitions ; for the rest, a man of perfect veracity, of 
great diligence, and other worth ; — notable to see alongside of 
Sterling. 



TO BORDEAUX. 115 

He is the ' E.' quoted by Mr. Hare from one of Sterling's 

letters ; — and I will incidentally confess that the discreet ' B.' 

of the next leaf in that Volume must, if need be, convert himself 

into ' C.,' my recognisable self namely. Sterling has written 

there : ' I find in all my conversations with Carlyle that his 

fundamental position is, the good of evil : he is forever quoting 

Goethe's Epigram about the idleness of wishing to jump off 

one's own shadow.' — Even so : 

Was lekr ich dich vor alien Dingen ? — 
Konntest mich lehren von meiner Schatte zu springen ! 

— indicating conversations on the Origin of Evil, or rather re- 
solution on my part to suppress such, as wholly fruitless and 
worthless ; which are now all grown dark to me ! The passage 
about Frank is as follows, — likewise elucidative of Sterling and 
his cloud-compellings, and duels with the shadows, about this 
time : 

' Edgeworth seems to me not to have yet gone beyond a 
mere notional life. It is manifest that he has no knowledge of 
' the necessity of a progress from Wissen to Weseri (say, Know- 
ing to Being) ; ' and one therefore is not surprised that he 
should think Kant a sufficient hierarch. I know very little of 
Kant's doctrine ; but I made out from Edgeworth what seems 

• to me afundamental unsoundness in his moral scheme : namely, 
the assertion of the certainty of a heavenly Futurity for man, 
because the idea of duty involves that of merit or reward. Now 
duty seems rather to exclude merit ; and at all events, the 
notion of external reward is a mere empirical appendage, and 

' has none but an arbitrary connexion with ethics. — I regard it 
as a very happy thing for Edgeworth that he has come to Eng- 
land. In Italy he probably would never have gained any in- 
' tuition into the reality of Being as different from a mere power 
' of Speculating and Perceiving ; and of course without this, he 

* can never reach to more than the merest Gnosis ; which taken 
' alone is a poor inheritance, a box of title-deeds to an estate 
' which is covered with lava, or sunk under the sea.' 1 

This good little Edgeworth had roved extensively about the 
Continent ; had married a young Spanish wife, whom by a ro- 
mantic accident he came upon in London : having really good 

1 Hare* pp. lxxiv. lxxii. 



Ii6 JOHN STERLING. 

scholarship, and consciousness of faculty and fidelity, he now 
hoped to find support in preparing young men for the University, 
in taking pupils to board ; and with this view, was endeavour- 
ing to form an establishment somewhere in the environs ; — 
ignorant that it is mainly the Clergy whom simple persons trust 
with that trade at present ; that his want of a patent of ortho- 
doxy, not to say his inexorable secret heterodoxy of mind, would 
far override all other qualifications in the estimate of simple 
persons, who are afraid of many things, and are not afraid of 
hypocrisy which is the worst and one irremediably bad thing. 
Poor Edgeworth tried this business for a while, but found no 
success at all ; went across, after a year or two, to native Edge- 
worthstown, in Longford, to take the management of his bro- 
ther's estate ; in which function it was said he shone, and had 
quite given-up philosophies and speculations, and become a taci- 
turn grim landmanager and county magistrate, likely to do much 
good in that department ; when we learned next that he was 
dead, that we should see him no more. The good little Frank ! 

One day in the spring of 1836, I can still recollect, Sterling 
had proposed to me, by way of wide ramble, useful for various 
ends, that I should walk with him to Eltham and back, to see 
this Edgeworth, whom I also knew a little. We went accord- 
ingly together ; walking rapidly, as was Sterling's wont, and no 
doubt talking extensively. It probably was in the end of Feb- 
ruary : I can remember leafless hedges, gray driving clouds ; — 
procession of boarding-school girls in some quiet part of the 
route. I very well recollect the big Edgeworth house at Eltham ; 
the big old Palace now a barn ; — in general, that the day was 
full of action ; and likewise that rain came upon us in our re- 
turn, and that the closing phasis was a march along Piccadilly, 
still full of talk, but now under decided wet, and in altogether 
muddy circumstances. This was the last walk that poor Ster- 
ling took for a great many months. 

He had been ailing for some time, little known to me, and 
too disregardful himself of minatory symptoms, as his wont was, 
so long as strength remained ; and this rainy walk of ours had 
now brought the matter to a crisis. He was shut-up from all 
visitors whatsoever ; the doctors and his family in great alarm 
about him, he himself coldly professing that death at no great 



TO BORDEAUX. 117 

distance was very likely. So it 'lasted for a long anxious while. 
I remember tender messages to and from him ; loan of books, 
particularly some of Goethe's which he then read, — still without 
recognition of much worth in them. At length some select friends 
were occasionally admitted ; signs of improvement began to 
appear ; — and in the bright twilight, Kensington Gardens were 
green, and sky and earth were hopeful, as one went to make 
inquiry. The summer brilliancy was abroad over the world be- 
fore we fairly saw Sterling again sub dio. — Here was a fatal 
hand on the wall ; checking tragically whatsoever wide-drawn 
schemes might be maturing themselves in such a life ; sternly 
admonitory that all schemes must be narrow, and admitted pro- 
blematic. 

Sterling, by the doctor's order, took to daily riding in sum- 
mer ; scouring far and wide on a swift strong horse, and was 
allowed no other exercise ; so that my walks with him had, to 
my sorrow, ended. We saw him otherwise pretty often ; but it 
was only for moments in comparison. His life, at any rate, in 
these circumstances was naturally devoid of composure. The 
little Bayswater establishment, with all its schemes of peaceable 
activity on the small or on the great scale, was evidently set 
adrift ; the anchor lifted, and Sterling and his family again at 
sea, for farther uncertain voyaging. Here is not thy rest ; not 
here : — where, then ! The question, What to do even for next 
autumn ? had become the pressing one. 

A rich Bordeaux merchant, an Uncle of his Wife's, of the 
name of Mr. Johnston, possessed a sumptuous mansion and 
grounds, which he did not occupy, in the environs of that south- 
ern City : it was judged that the climate might be favourable ; 
to the house and its copious accommodation there was welcome 
ingress, if Sterling chose to occupy it. Servants were not needed, 
servants and conveniences enough, in the big solitary mansion 
with its marble terraces, were already there. Conveniences 
enough within, and curiosities without. It is the ' South of 
France,' with its Gascon ways ; the Garonne, Garumna river, 
the Gironde and Montaigne's country : here truly are invita- 
tions. 

In short, it was decided that he and his family should move 
thither ; there, under warmer skies, begin a new residence. 
The doctors promised improvement, if the place suited for a 



n8 JOHN STERLING. 

permanency ; there at least, much more commodiously than 
elsewhere, he might put over the rigorous period of this present 
year. Sterling left us, I find noted, ' on the first of August 1836.' 
The name of his fine foreign mansion is Belsito ; in the village 
of Floirac, within short distance of Bordeaux. 

Counting-in his voyage to the West Indies, this is the second 
of some five health-journeys which, sometimes with his family, 
sometimes without, he had to make in all. * Five forced pere- 
grinities ;' which, in their sad and barren alternation, are the 
main incidents of his much -obstructed life henceforth. Five 
swift flights, not for any high or low object in life, but for life 
itself ; swift jerkings aside from whatever path or object you 
might be following, to escape the scythe of Death. On such 
terms had poor Sterling henceforth to live ; and surely with less 
complaint, with whatever result otherwise, no man could do it. 

His health prospered at Bordeaux. He had, of course, new 
interests and objects of curiosity; but when once the household 
was settled in its new moorings, and the first dazzle of strange- 
ness fairly over, he returned to his employments and pursuits, 
— which were, in good part, essentially the old ones. His chosen 
books, favourite instructors of the period, were with him ; at 
least the world of his own thoughts was with him, and the grand 
ever-recurring question : "What to do with that ; How best to 
regulate that ? 

I remember kind and happy-looking Letters from him at 
Bordeaux, rich enough in interests and projects, in activities and 
emotions. He looked abroad over the Gironde country, over 
the towers and quais of Bordeaux at least with a painter's eye, 
which he rather eminently had, and very eminently loved to 
exercise. Of human acquaintances he found not many to attract 
him, nor could he well go much into deeper than pictorial con- 
nexion with the scene around him ; but on this side too, he 
was, as usual, open and willing. A learned young German, tutor 
in some family of the neighbourhood, was admitted frequently 
to see him ; probably the only scholar in those parts with whom 
he could converse of an evening. One of my Letters contained 
notice of a pilgrimage he had made to the old Chateau of Mon- 
taigne ; a highly interesting sight to a reading man. He wrote 
to me also about the Caves of St. Emilion or Libourne, hiding- 






TO BORDEAUX. 119 

place of Barbaroux, Petion and other Girondins, concerning 
whom I, was then writing. Nay here is the Letter itself still 
left ; and. I may as well insert it, as a relic of that time. The 
projected 'walking expedition' into France; the vision of Mon- 
taigne's old House, Barbaroux's death-scene ; the Chinese In- 
Kiao-Li or Two Fair Cousins : all these things are long since 
asleep, as if" dead ; and affect one's own mind with a sense ot 
strangeness when resuscitated : 



* To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London. 

' Belsito, near Bordeaux, 26th October 1836. 
• My dear Carlyle, — I have to thank you for two Letters, 
' which, unlike other people's, have the writer's signature in 
' every word as well as at the end. Your assurances of remem- 
brance and kindness were by no means necessary, but are not 
4 at all less pleasant. The patronage you bestow on my old 

• stick requires the acknowledgment from, me which my care 
' of its education had not succeeded in teaching it to express for 
' itself. May your more genial and more masculine treatment 
' be more effectual ! I remember that I used to fling it along 
' the broad walk in Kensington Gardens, for Edward to run 
1 after it ; and I suspect you will find the scars resulting from 

• the process, on the top of the hook. 

' If the purveyors of religion and its implements to this 
' department of France supplied such commodities as waxen 
' hecatombs, I would sacrifice one for the accomplishment of 
' your pedestrian design ; and am already meditating an appro- 

• priate invocation, sermone ftedestri. Pray come, in the first 

• fine days of spring ; or rather let us look forward to your com- 
' ing, for as to the fact, where may both or either of us be before 

• this day six months ? I am not, however, resolute as to any 
' plan of my own that would take me either along the finite or 
' the infinite sea. I still bear up, and do my best here ; and 
' have no distinct schemes of departure : for I am well, and 
' well situated at present, and enjoy my books, my leisure, and 
' the size and comfort of the house I live in. I shall go, if go 
' I must ; and not otherwise. I have sometimes thought that, 

• if driven away later in the year, I might try Italy, — probably 

• at first Pisa ; and h so, should hope, in spite of cholera, to 



120 JOHN STERLING. 

' see your Brother, who would be helpful both to mind and 
• body. When you write to him, pray just touch with your pen 
' the long cobweb thread that connects me with him, and which 
' is more visible and palpable about eighteen inches above your 
' writing-table than anywhere else in this much becobwebbed 
' world. 

' Your account of the particular net you occupy in the great 
' reticulation is not very consolatory ; — I should be sorry if it 
' were from thinking of it as a sort of paries ftroxi?nus. When 
' you slip the collar of the French Revolution, and the fine 
' weather comes round again, and my life becomes insurable at 
' less than fifty per cent, I hope to see you as merry as Philina 
' or her husband, in spite of your having somewhat more wis- 
' dom. — And all these good things may be, in some twenty-six 
' weeks or less ; a space of time for which the paltriest Dutch 
' clock would be warranted to go, without more than an hour 
' or two of daily variation. I trust we have, both of us, souls 
' above those that tick in country kitchens ! — Of your Wife I 
' think you say nothing in your last. Why does she not write 
' to me? Is it because she will not stoop to nonsense, and that 
' would be the only proper answer to an uncanonical epistle I 
' sent her while in Scotland? Tell her she is, at all events, sure 
' of being constantly remembered ; for I play backgammon with 
1 Charles Barton for want of any one to play chess with. 

' Of my expedition to Montaigne's old House I cannot say 
' much : for I indited Notes thereof for my own use, and also 
' wrote something about it to Mr. Dunn ; which is as much as 
' the old walls would well bear. It is truly an interesting place ; 
' for it does not seem as if a stone had been touched since 
' Montaigne's time ; though his house is still inhabited, and the 
' apartment that he describes in the Essai des Trois Commerces 
' might, barring the evident antiquity, have been built yesterday 
1 to realise his account. The rafters of the room which was his 
' library have still his inscriptions on their lower faces : all very 
' characteristic ; many from Ecclesiastes. The view is open all 
' round ; over a rather flat, elevated country, apparently clayey 
' ploughed lands, with little wood, no look of great population, 
' and here and there a small stone windmill with a conical roof. 
1 The village church close by is much older than Montaigne's 



TO BORDEAUX. 121 

1 day. His house looks just as he describes it : a considerable 
1 building that never was at all fortified. 

' St. Emilion I had not time to see or learn much of ; but 

• the place looks all very old. A very small town, built of stone ; 

• jostled into a sort of ravine, or large quarry, in the slope from 
' the higher table-land towards the Dordogne. Quite on the 
' ridge, at the top of the town, is an immense Gothic steeple, 
' that would suit a cathedral, but has under it only a church 
' (now abandoned) cut out in the sandstone rock, and of great 
' height and size. There is a large church above ground close 
' by, and several monastic buildings. Of the Caves I only saw 
' some entrances. I fancy they are all artificial, but am not 
' sure. The Dordogne is in sight below in the plain. I can- 
' not lay my hands on any Book for you which gives an account 
' of the time the Girondins spent here ; or who precisely those 
' were that made this their hiding-place. 

' I was prepared for what you say of Mirabeau and its post- 
' ponement, from an advertisement of the Articles, in the 
' Times: — but this I only saw the day after I had written to 
1 Paris to order the new Number' of the London-and- Westmin- 
ster ' by mail ; so I consider the Editor in my debt for ten or 

• twelve francs of postage, which I hope to recover when we get 

• our equitable adjustment of all things in this world. 

• I have now read through Saint Simon's twenty volumes ; 
' which have well repaid me. The picture of the daily detail 

• of a despotic court is something quite startling from its vivid- 
' ness and reality ; and there is perhaps a much deeper interest 

• in his innumerable portraits and biographies, — many of which, 
' told in the quietest way, are appalling tragedies ; and the best, 
' I think, have something painful and delirious about them. I 
' have also lounged a good deal over the Biographie Universelle 
' and Bayle. The last I never looked into before. One would 
' think he had spent his whole life in the Younger Pliny's 

• windowless study; had never seen, except by candlelight; and 
' thought the Universe a very good raw-material for books. 

• But he is an amiable honest man ; and more good material 
' than enough was spent in making the case for that logical 
' wheel-work of his. As to the Biographie Universelle, you 
' know it better than I. I wish Craik, or some such man, 
' could be employed on an English edition, in which the British 



122 JOHN STERLING. 

* lives should be better done. — I sent for the Chinese Cousins 

* as soon as I received your Letter ; but the answer was, that 
1 the book is out of print. 

' Have you seen the last Number of the Foreign Reviews 

* where there is an article on Eckermann's Conversations of 
1 Goethe, written by a stupid man, but giving extracts of much 
' interest ? Goethe's talk has been running in my head for the 
' last fortnight ; and I find I am more inclined than I was to 

' value the flowers that grow (as on the Alps) on the margin 
' of his glaciers. I shall read his Dichtung und Wahrheit, 
' and Italian Tour, when the books come in my way. But I 
' have still little hope of finding in him what I should look for 
4 in Jean Paul, and what I possess in some others : a ground 
' prolonging and encircling that on which I myself rest. 

' I suppose the dramatic projects of Henry Taylor (to whom 
' remember me cordially) are mainly Thomas a, Becket. I too 
' have been scheming Tragedies and Novels ; — but with little 
' notion of doing more than play the cloud-compeller, for want 
' of more substantial work on earth. I do not know why, but 
' my thoughts have, since I reached this, been running more on 

* History and Poetry than on Theology and Philosophy, more 
« indeed than for years past. ' I suppose it is a providential ar- 
' rangement, that I may find out I am good for as little in the 
« one way as the other. — In the mean time do not let my 

* monopoly of your correspondence be only a nominal privilege. 
« Accept my Wife's kindest remembrances ; give my love to 

* yours. Tell me if I can do anything for you. Do not let the 
« ides of March go by without starting for the Garonne : — and 
< believe me, — Yours jusqu'a la nibrt. sans phrase, 

'John Sterling.' 

"La mort sans phrase" was Sieyes's vote in the Trial of 
Louis. Sterling's ' Notes for his own use,' which are here men- 
tioned in reference to that Montaigne pilgrimage of his, were 
employed not long after, in an Essay on Montaigne. 2 He also 
read the Chinese Cousins, and loved it, — as I had expected. 
Of which take this memorandum : ' Iu-Kiao-Li, ou les Deiix 
' Cousiness translated by Remusat ; — well translated into Eng- 

* lish also, from his version ; and one oi the notablest Chinese 

2 London and Westminster Review ; Hare, i.. 129. 



TO' BORDEAUX. 123 

' books. A book in fact by a Chinese man of genius j most 
' strangely but recognisably such, — man of genius made on the 
' dragon pattern ! Recommended to me by Carlyle ; to him by 
' Leigh Hunt.' The other points need no explanation. 

By this time, I conclude, as indeed this Letter indicates, the 
theological tumult was decidedly abating in him ; to which re- 
sult this still hermit-life in the Gironde would undoubtedly con- 
tribute. Tholuck, Schleiermacher, and the war of articles and 
rubrics, were left in the far distance ; Nature's blue skies, and 
awful eternal verities, were once more around one, and small 
still voices, admonitory of many things, could in the beautiful 
solitude freely reach the heart. Theologies, rubrics, surplices, 
church-articles, and this enormous ever-repeated thrashing of 
the straw ? A world of rotten straw ; thrashed all into powder ; 
filling the Universe and blotting-out the stars and worlds : — 
Heaven pity you with such a thrashing-floor for world, and its 
diaaggled dirty farthing-candle for sun ! There is surely other 
worship possible for the heart of man ; there should be other 
work, or none at all, for the intellect and creative faculty of 
man ! — 

It was here, I find, that Literature first again decisively began 
to dawn on Sterling as the goal he ought to aim at. To this, 
with his poor broken opportunities and such inward faculties as 
were given him* it became gradually clearer that he ought alto- 
gether to apply himself. Such result was now decisively begin- 
ning for him ; the original bent of his mind, the dim mandate 
of all the facts in his outward and inward condition ; evidently 
the one wholesome tendency for him, which grew ever clearer 
to the end of his course, and gave at least one steady element, 
and that the central one, in his fluctuating existence henceforth. 
It was years still before he got the inky tints of that Coleridgean 
adventure completely bleached from his mind ; but here the pro- 
cess had begun, — and I doubt not, we have to thank the soli- 
tude of Floirac for it a little ; which is some consolation for the 
illness that sent him thither. 

His best hours here were occupied in purely literary occupa- 
tions ; in attempts at composition on his own footing again. 
Unluckily in this too the road for him was now far away, after 
so many years of aberration ; true road not to be found all at 



124 JOHN STERLING. 

once. But at least he was seeking it again. The Sexton's 
Daughter, which he composed here this season, did by no means 
altogether please us as a Poem ; but it was, or deserved to be, 
very welcome as a symptom of spiritual return to the open air. 
Adieu, ye thrashing-floors of rotten straw, with bleared tallow- 
light for sun ; to you adieu ! The angry sordid dust-whirl- 
winds begin to allay themselves ; settle into soil underfoot, 
where their place is : glimpses, call them distant intimations 
still much veiled, of the everlasting azure, and a much higher 
and wider priesthood than that under copes and mitres, and 
wretched dead mediaeval monkeries and extinct traditions. This 
was perhaps the chief intellectual result of Sterling's residence 
at Bordeaux, and flight to the Gironde in pursuit of health ; 
which does not otherwise deserve to count as an epoch or 
chapter with him. 

In the course of the summer and autumn 1837, I do not 
now find at what exact dates, he made two journeys from Bor- 
deaux to England ; the first by himself, on various small spe- 
cific businesses, and uncertain outlooks ; the second with his 
family, having at last, after hesitation, decided on removal from 
those parts. ' The cholera had come to France ;' — add to 
which, I suppose, his solitude at Belsito was growing irksome, 
and home and merry England, in comparison with the mono- 
tony of the Gironde, had again grown inviting. He had vaguely 
purposed to make for Nice in the coming winter ; but that also 
the cholera or other causes prevented. His Brother Anthony, 
a gallant young soldier, was now in England, home from the 
Ionian Islands on a visit to old friends and scenes ; and that 
doubtless was a new and strong inducement hitherward. It 
was this summer, I think, that the two Brothers revisited to- 
gether the scene of their early boyhood at Llanblethian ; a 
touching pilgrimage, of which John gave me account in refer- 
ence to something similar of my own in Scotland, where I 
then was. 

Here, in a Letter to his Mother, is notice of his return from 
the first of these sallies into England ; and how doubtful all at 
Bordeaux still was, and how pleasant some little certainties at 
home. The ' Annie' of whose ' engagement' there is mention, 
was Miss Anna Barton, Mrs. John Sterling's younger sister, 






TO BORDEAUX. 125 

who, to the joy of more than one party, as appears, had accepted 
his friend Maurice while Sterling was in England : 

' To Mrs. Sterling, Knightsbridge, London. 

' Floirac, 7th August 1837. 

' My dear Mother, — I am now beginning to feel a little 
' less dizzy and tired, and will try to write you a few lines to 
' tell you of my fortunes. 

' I found my things all right at the Albion. Unluckily, the 
' steamer could not start from Brighton, and I was obliged to 
' go over to Shoreham ; but the weather cleared up, and we 
' had rather a smooth passage into France. The wind was off 
' the French coast, so that we were in calm water at last. We 
' got in about ten o'clock ; — too late for the Custom-house. 

* Next morning I settled all my business early ; but was de- 
' tained for horses till nine, — owing to the nearness of the Duke 
' of Orleans, which had caused a great stir on the roads. I 
' was for the same reason stopped at Rouen ; and I was once 
' again stopped, on Saturday for an hour, waiting for horses ; 
' otherwise I travelled without any delay, and in the finest wea- 
' ther, from Dieppe to this place, which I reached on Sunday 
' morning at five. I took the shortest road, by Alencon, Saumur 
1 and Niort ; and was very well satisfied with my progress, — 

• at least, till about Blaye, on the Garonne, where there was a 
' good deal of deep sand, which, instead of running merrily 

* through the hour-glass of Time, on the contrary clogged the 
' wheels of my carriage. At last, however, I reached home ; 
' and found everybody well, and glad to see me. — I felt tired 
1 and stupid, and not at all disposed to write. But I am now 
' sorry I did not overcome my laziness, and send you a line to 
1 announce my safe arrival ; for I know that at a distance 
x people naturally grow anxious, even without any reason. 

• It seems now almost like a dream, that I have ever been 
' away from hence. But Annie's engagement to Maurice is, I 
' trust, a lasting memorial of my journey. I find Susan quite 
' as much pleased as I expected with her Sister's prospects ; 
' and satisfied that nothing could have so well secured her hap- 
' piness, and mental (or rather cordial) advancement as her 
' union to such a man. On the whole, it is a great happiness 

• to me to look back both to this matter, and on the kindness 



126 JOHN STERLING. 

' and affection of the relatives and friends whom I saw in Eng- 
' land. It will be a very painful disappointment to me if I 

• should be obliged to pass the next summer without taking my 

• Wife and Children to our own country : — we will, at all events, 
' enjoy the hope of my doing so. In the meantime I trust you 

• will enjoy your Tour, and on your return spend a quiet and 
' cheerful winter. Love to my Father, and kindest regards to 
1 Mrs. Carlyle. — Your affectionate son, John Sterling.' 



CHAPTER V. 

TO MADEIRA. 

Sterling's dubieties as to continuing at Bordeaux were 
quickly decided. The cholera in France, the cholera in Nice, 
the — In fact his moorings were now loose ; and having been 
fairly at sea, he never could anchor himself here again. Very 
shortly after this Letter, he left Belsito again (for good, as it 
proved) ; and returned to England with his household, there 
to consider what should next be done. 

On my return from Scotland, that year, perhaps late in Sep- 
tember, I remember finding him lodged straitly but cheerfully, 
and in happy humour, in a little cottage on Blackheath ; 
whither his Father one day persuaded me to drive out with him 
for dinner. Our welcome, I can still recollect, was conspicu- 
ously cordial ; the place of dinner a kind of upper room, half- 
garret and full of books, which seemed to be John's place of 
study. From a shelf, I remember also, the good soul took 
down a book modestly enough bound in three volumes, lettered 
on the back Carlyle 's French Revolution, which had been pub- 
lished lately ; this he with friendly banter bade me look at as 
a first symptom, small but significant, that the book was not to 
die all at once. " One copy of it at least might hope to last 
the date of sheep-leather," I admitted, — and in my then mood 
the little fact was welcome. Our dinner, frank and happy on 
the part of Sterling, was peppered with abundant jolly satire 
from his Father : before tea, I took myself away ; towards 
Woolwich, I remember, where probably there was another call 
to make, and passage homeward by steamer : Sterling strode 



■ 



TO MADEIRA. 127 

along with me a good bit of road in the bright sunny evening, 
full of lively friendly talk, and altogether kind and amiable ; 
and beautifully sympathetic with the loads he thought he saw 
on me, forgetful of his own. We shook hands on the road near 
the foot of Shooter's Hill : — at which point dim oblivious clouds 
rush down ; and of small or great I remember nothing more in 
my history or his for some time. 

Besides running much about among friends, and holding 
counsels for the management of the coming winter, Sterling 
was now considerably occupied with Literature again ; and 
indeed may be said to have already definitely taken it up as 
the one practical pursuit left for him. Some correspondence 
with Blackwood's Magazine was opening itself, under promis- 
ing omens : now, and more and more henceforth, he began to 
look on Literature as his real employment, after all ; and was 
prosecuting it with his accustomed loyalty and ardour. And 
he continued ever afterwards, in spite of such fitful circum- 
stances and uncertain outward fluctuations as his were sure of 
being, to prosecute it steadily with all the strength he had. 

One evening about this time, he came down to us, to 
Chelsea, most likely by appointment and with stipulation for 
privacy ; and read, for our opinion, his Poem of the Sexton's 
Daughter, which we now first heard of. The judgment in this 
house was friendly, but not the most encouraging. We found 
the piece monotonous, cast in the mould of Wordsworth, defi- 
cient in real human fervour or depth of melody, dallying on 
the borders of the infantile and "goody-good;" — in fact, in- 
volved still in the shadows of the surplice, and inculcating (on 
hearsay mainly) a weak morality, which he would one day find 
not to be moral at all, but in good part maudlin-hypocritical 
and immoral. As indeed was to be said still of most of his 
performances, especially the poetical ; a sickly shadow of the 
parish-church still hanging over them, which he could by no 
means recognise for sickly. Imprimatur nevertheless was the 
concluding word, — with these grave abatements, and rhada- 
manthine admonitions. To all which Sterling listened seri- 
ously and in the mildest humour. His reading, it might have 
been added, had much hurt the effect of the piece : a dreary 
pulpit or even conventicle manner ; that flattest moaning hoo- 
hoo of predetermined pathos, with a kind of rocking canter 



128 JOHN STERLING. 

introduced by way of intonation, each stanza the exact fellow 
of the other, and the dull swing of the rocking-horse duly in 
each ; — no reading could be more unfavourable to Sterling's 
poetry than his own. Such a mode of reading, and indeed 
generally in a man of such vivacity the total absence of all 
gifts for playacting or artistic mimicry in any kind, was a 
noticeable point. 

After much consultation, it was settled at last that Sterling 
should go to Madeira for the winter. One gray dull autumn 
afternoon, towards the middle of October, I remember walk- 
ing with him to the eastern Dock region, to see his ship, and 
how the final preparations in his own little cabin were pro- 
ceeding there. A dingy little ship, the deck crowded with 
packages, and bustling sailors within eight-and-forty hours of 
lifting anchor ; a dingy chill smoky day, as I have said withal, and 
a chaotic element and outlook, enough to make a friend's heart 
sad. I admired the cheerful careless humour and brisk acti- 
vity of Sterling, who took the matter all on the sunny side, as 
he was wont in such cases. We came home together in mani- 
fold talk : he accepted with the due smile my last contribution 
to his sea-equipment, a sixpenny box of German lucifers pur- 
chased on the sudden in St. James's Street, fit to be offered 
with laughter or with tears or with both ; he was to leave for 
Portsmouth almost immediately, and there go on board. Our 
next news was of his safe arrival in the temperate Isle. Mrs. 
Sterling and the children were left at Knightsbridge ; to pass 
this winter with his Father and Mother. 

At Madeira Sterling did well : improved in health ; was 
busy with much Literature ; and fell -in with society which 
he could reckon pleasant. He was much delighted with the 
scenery of the place ; found the climate wholesome to him 
in a marked degree ; and, with good news from home, and 
kindly interests here abroad, passed no disagreeable winter in 
that exile. There was talking, there was writing, there was 
hope of better health ; he rode almost daily, in cheerful busy 
humour, along those fringed shore-roads : — beautiful leafy 
roads and horse -paths ; with here and there a wild cataract 
and bridge to look at ; and always with the soft sky overhead, 



TO MADEIRA. 129 

the dead volcanic mountain on one hand, and broad illimit- 
able sea spread out on the other. Here are two Letters which 
give reasonably good account of him : 

' To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London. 

' Funchal, Madeira, 16th November 1837. 

' My dear Carlyle, — I have been writing a good many 
' letters all in a batch, to go by the same opportunity ; and 
' I am thoroughly weary of writing the same things over and 
' over again to different people. My letter to you therefore, I 
' fear, must have much of the character of remainder-biscuit. 
' But you will receive it as a proof that I do not wish you to 
' forget me, though it may be useless for any other purpose. 

' I reached this on the 2d, after a tolerably prosperous voy- 
' age, deformed by some days of sea-sickness, but otherwise not 

• to be complained of. I liked my twenty fellow-passengers far 
' better than I expected ; — three or four of them I like much, 
' and continue to see frequently. The Island too is better than 

• I expected : so that my Barataria at least does not disappoint 

• me. The bold rough mountains, with mist about their sum- 

• mits, verdure below, and a bright sun over all, please me much ; 
' and I ride daily on the steep and narrow paved roads, which 
■ no wheels ever journeyed on. The Town is clean, and there 

• its merits end : but I am comfortably lodged ; with a large 
4 and pleasant sitting-room to myself. I have met with much 
' kindness ; and see all the society I want, — though it is not 
' quite equal to that of London, even excluding Chelsea. 

1 1 have got about me what Books I brought out ; and have 
' read a little, and done some writing for Blackwood, — ah, I 
' have the pleasure to inform you, prose, nay extremely prose. 
1 I shall now be more at leisure ; and hope to get more steadily 
' to work ; though I do not know what I shall begin upon. As 
1 to reading, I have been looking at Goethe, especially the Life, 
' — much as a shying horse looks at a post. In truth, I am 
' afraid of him. I enjoy and admire him so much, and feel I 
' could so easily be tempted to go along with him. And yet I 

• have a deeply-rooted and old persuasion that he was the most 
' splendid of anachronisms. A thoroughly, nay intensely Pagan 
1 Life, in an age when it is men's duty to be Christian. I there- 

• fore never take him up without a kind of inward check, as ii 

K 



130 JOHN STERLING. 

* I were trying some forbidden spell ; while, on the other hand, 
' there is so infinitely much to be learnt from him, and it is so 
' needful to understand the world we live in, and our own age, 
' and especially its greatest minds, that I cannot bring myself 

* to burn my books as the converted Magicians did, or sink 
' them as did Prospero. There must, as I think, have been 
' some prodigious defect in his mind, to let him hold such views 
' as his about women and some other things ; and in another 
' respect, I find so much coldness and hollowness as to the 
' highest truths, and feel so strongly that the Heaven he looks 
' up to is but a vault of ice, — that these two indications, lead- 
' ing to the same conclusion, go far to convince me he was a 
' profoundly immoral and irreligious spirit, with as rare facul- 
' ties of intelligence as ever belonged to any one. All this may 
' be mere goody weakness and twaddle, on my part : but it is 
' a persuasion that I cannot escape from ; though I should feel 
' the doing so to be a deliverance from a most painful load. If 
1 you could help me, I heartily wish you would. I never take 
' him up without high admiration, or lay him down without real 
' sorrow for what he chose to be. 

* I have been reading nothing else that you would much 
' care for. Southey's Amadis has amused me ; and Lyell's Geo- 
' logy interested me. The latter gives one the same sort of be- 

* wildering view of the abysmal extent of Time that Astronomy 
' does of Space. I do not think I shall take your advice as to 
' learning Portuguese. It is said to be very ill spoken here ; 
' and assuredly it is the most direful series of nasal twangs I ever 
' heard. One gets on quite well with English. 

' The people here are, I believe, in a very low condition ; 
' but they do not appear miserable. I am told that the influ- 
' ence of the priests makes the peasantry all Miguelites ; but it 
1 is said that nobody wants any more revolutions. There is no 
' appearance of riot or crime ; and they are all extremely civil. 
' I was much interested by learning that Columbus once lived 
' here, before he found America and fame. I have been to see 
' a deserted quiuta (country-house), where there is a great deal 
' of curious old sculpture, in relief, upon the masonry ; many of 
' the figures, which are nearly as large as life, representing sol- 
' diers clad and armed much as I should suppose those of Cor- 
' tez were. There are no buildings about the Town, of the 



TO MADEIRA. 131 

' smallest pretensions to beauty or charm of any kind. On the 
' whole, if Madeira were one's world, life would certainly rather 
' tend to stagnate ; but as a temporary refuge, a niche in an 
' old ruin where one is sheltered from the shower, it has great 
' merit. I am more comfortable and contented than I expected 
1 to be, so far from home and from everybody I am closely con- 
' nected with : but, of course, it is at best a tolerable exile. 

' Tell Mrs. Carlyle that I have written, since I have been 
1 here, and am going to send to Blackwood, a humble imitation 
' of her Watch and Canary-Bird, entitled The Suit of Armour 
' and the Skeleton.^ I am conscious that I am far from having 
' reached the depth and fulness of despair and mockery which 

• distinguish the original ! But in truth there is a lightness of 
' tone about her style, which I hold to be invaluable : where 
■ she makes hairstrokes, I make blotches. I have a vehement 

• suspicion that my Dialogue is an entire failure ; but I cannot 
' be plagued with it any longer. Tell her I will not send her 
' messages, but will write to her soon. — Meanwhile I am affec- 
' tionately hers and yours, John Sterling.' 

The next is to his Brother-in-law ; and in a still hopefuler 
tone : 

' To Charles Barton, Esq." 

' Funchal, Madeira, 3d March 1838. 

' My dear Charles, — I have often been thinking of you 

' and your whereabouts in Germany, and wishing I knew more 

' about you ; and at last it occurred to me that you might per- 

' haps have the same wish about me, and that therefore I should 

• do well to write to you. 

' I have been here exactly four months, having arrived on 
5 the 2d of November, — my wedding-day ; and though you per- 
' haps may not think it a compliment to Susan, I have seldom 
' passed four months more cheerfully and agreeably. I have 
' of course felt my absence from my family, and missed the 
1 society of my friends ; for there is not a person here whom I 

• knew before I left England. But, on the whole, I have been 

• in good health, and actively employed. I have a good many 

1 Came out, as will soon appear, in Blackwood (February 1838). 

2 ' Hotel de V Europe, Berlin,' added in Mrs. Sterling's hand. 



132 JOHN STERLING. 

' agreeable and valuable acquaintances, one or two of whom I 
' hope I may hereafter reckon as friends. The weather has 
' generally been fine, and never cold ; and the scenery of the 
' Island is of a beauty which you unhappy Northern people can 
' have little conception of. 

' It consists of a great mass of volcanic mountains, covered 
' in their lower parts with cottages, vines and patches of vege- 
' tables. When you pass through, or over the central ridge, 
' and get towards the North, there are woods of trees, of the 

• laurel kind, covering the wild steep slopes, and forming some 
' of the strangest and most beautiful prospects I have ever seen. 
4 Towards the interior, the forms of the hills become more 
' abrupt, and loftier ; and give the notion of very recent vol- 
' canic disturbances, though in fact there has been nothing of 
' the kind since the discovery of the Island by Europeans. 
' Among these mountains, the dark deep precipices, and narrow 

• ravines with small streams at the bottom ; the basaltic knobs 
' and ridges on the summits ; and the perpetual play of mist 
' and cloud around them, under this bright sun and clear sky, — • 
' form landscapes which you would thoroughly enjoy, and which 
' I much wish I could give you a notion of. The Town is on 
' the south, and of course the sheltered side of the Island ; per- 
' fectly protected from the North and East ; although we have 

• seen sometimes patches of bright snow on the dark peaks in 
' the distance. It is a neat cheerful place ; all built of gray 
' stone, but having many of the houses coloured white or red. 
' There is not a really handsome building in it, but there is a 
' general aspect of comfort and solidity. The shops are very 
' poor. The English do not mix at all with the Portuguese. 
' The Bay is a very bad anchorage ; but is wide, bright and 
' cheerful ; and there are some picturesque points, — one a small 
' black island, — scattered about it. 

' I lived till a fortnight ago in lodgings, having two rooms, 
' one a very good one ; and paying for everything fifty-six dol- 
' lars a month, the dollar being four shillings and twopence. 
' This you will see is dear ; but I could make no better ar- 
' rangement, for there is an unusual affluence of strangers this 
' year. I have now come to live with a friend, a Dr. Calvert, 
' in a small house of our own, where I am much more com- 

• fortable, and live greatly cheaper. He is a friend oi Mrs. Per- 



TO MADEIRA. 133 

aval's ; about my age, an Oriel man, and a very superior 
person. I think the chances are, we shall go home together.' 
■ * * < j canno t tell you of all the other people I have be- 
come familiar with ; and shall only mention in addition Bing- 
ham Baring, eldest son of Lord Ashburton, who was here for 
some weeks on account of a dying brother, and whom I saw a 
great deal of. He is a pleasant, very good-natured and rather 
clever man ; Conservative Member for North Staffordshire. 

' During the first two months I was here, I rode a great 
deal about the Island, having a horse regularly; and was much 
in agreeable company, seeing a great deal of beautiful scenery. 
Since then the weather has been much more unsettled, though 
not cold ; and I have gone about less, as I cannot risk the being 
wet. But I have spent my time pleasantly, reading and writ- 
ing. I have written a good many things for Blackwood; one 
of which, the Armour and the Skeleton, I see is printed in the 
February Number. I have just sent them a long Tale, called 
the Onyx Ring, which cost me a good deal of trouble ; and 
the extravagance of which, I think, would amuse you ; but its 
length may prevent its appearance in Blackwood. If so, I 
think I should make a volume of it. I have also written some 
poems, and shall probably publish the Sexton's Daughter when 
I return. 

1 My health goes on most favourably. I have had no attack 
of the chest this spring ; which has not happened to me since 
the spring before we went to Bonn ; and I am told, if I take 
care, I may roll along for years. But I have little hope of 
being allowed to spend the four first months of any year in 
England ; and the question will be, Whether to go at once to 
Italy, by way of Germany and Switzerland, with my family, 
or to settle with them in England, perhaps at Hastings, and 
go abroad myself when it may be necessary. I cannot decide 
till I return ; but I think the latter the most probable. 

' To my dear Charles I do not like to use the ordinary forms 
of ending a letter, for they are very inadequate to express my 
sense of your long and most unvarying kindness ; but be 
assured no one living could say with more sincerity that he is 
ever affectionately yours, John Sterling.' 

Other Letters give occasionally views of the shadier side of 



134 JOHN STERLING. 

things : dark broken weather, in the sky and in the mind ; ugly 
clouds covering one's poor fitful transitory prospect, for a time, 
as they might well do in Sterling's case. Meanwhile we per- 
ceive his literary business is fast developing itself ; amid all his 
confusions, he is never idle long. Some of his best Pieces, — 
the Onyx Ring, for one, as we perceive, — were written here this 
winter. Out of the turbid whirlpool of the days he strives 
assiduously to snatch what he can. 

Sterling's communications with Blackwood's Magazine had 
now issued in some open sanction of him by Professor Wilson, 
the distinguished presiding spirit of that Periodical ; a fact 
naturally of high importance to him under the literary point of 
view. For Wilson, with his clear flashing eye and great genial 
heart, had at once recognised Sterling ; and lavished stormily, 
in his wild generous way, torrents of praise on him in the edi- 
torial comments : which undoubtedly was one of the gratefulest 
literary baptisms, by fire or by water, that could befall a soul 
like Sterling's. He bore it very gently, being indeed past the 
age to have his head turned by anybody's praises ; nor do I 
think the exaggeration that was in these eulogies did him any 
ill whatever ; while surely their generous encouragement did 
him much good, in his solitary struggle towards new activity 
under such impediments as his. Laudari a laudato ; to be 
called noble by one whom you and the world recognise as noble : 
this great satisfaction, never perhaps in such a degree before or 
after, had now been vouchsafed to Sterling ; and was, as I com- 
pute, an important fact for him. He proceeded on his pil- 
grimage with new energy, and felt more and more as if authen- 
tically consecrated to the same. 

The Onyx Ring, a curious Tale, with wild improbable basis, 
but with a noble glow of colouring and with other high merits 
in it, a Tale still worth reading, in which, among the imaginary 
characters, various friends of Sterling's are shadowed forth, not 
always in the truest manner, came out in Blackwood in the 
winter of this year.* Surely a very high talent for painting, both 
of scenery and persons, is visible in this Fiction ; the promise 
of a Novel such as we have few. But there wants maturing, 
wants purifying of clear from unclear ; — properly there want 
patience and steady depth. The basis, as we said, is wild and 
loose ; and in the details, lucent often with fine colour, and dipt 



TO MADEIRA. 135 

in beautiful sunshine, there are several things misseen, untrue, 
which is the worst species of raispainting. Witness, as Sterling 
himself would have by and by admitted, the ' empty clockcase' 
(so we called it) which he has labelled Goethe, — which puts all 
other untruths in the Piece to silence. 

One of the great alleviations of his <ex^g- at Madeira' he has 
already celebrated to us : the pleasah&\:ircle of society he fell 
into there. Great luck, thinks Sterling in this^oy^ge ; as in- 
deed there was : but he himself, moreover, was readier than 
most men to fall into pleasant circles everywhere, being singu- 
larly prompt to make the most of any circle. Some of his 
Madeira acquaintanceships were really- good ; and one of them, 
if not more, ripened into coiraadeship and friendship for him. 
He says, as we saw, ' The chances are, Calvert and I will come 
home together.' 

Among the English in pursuit of health, or in flight from 
fatal disease, that winter, was this Dr. Calvert ; an excellent 
ingenious cheery Cumberland gentleman, about Sterling's age, 
and in a deeper stage of ailment, this not being his first visit 
to Madeira : he, warmly joining himself to Sterling, as we have 
seen, was warmly received by him ; so that there soon grew a 
close and free intimacy between them ; which for the next three 
years, till poor Calvert ended his course, was a leading element 
in the history of both. Companionship in incurable malady, a 
touching bond of union, was by no means purely or chiefly a 
companionship in misery in their case. The sunniest inextin- 
guishable cheerfulness shone, through all manner of clouds, in 
both. Calvert had been travelling physician in some family of 
rank, who had rewarded him with a pension, shielding his own 
ill-health from one sad evil. Being hopelessly gone in pul- 
monary disorder, he now moved about among friendly climates 
and places, seeking what alleviation there might be ; often spend- 
ing his summers in the house of a sister in the environs of Lon- 
don ; an insatiable rider on his little brown pony ; always, 
wherever you might meet him, one of the cheeriest of men. He 
had plenty of speculation too, clear glances of all kinds into reli- 
gious, social, moral concerns ; and pleasantly incited Sterling's 
outpourings on such subjects. He could report of fashionable 
persons and manners, in a fine human Cumberland manner ; 



136 JOHN STERLING. 

loved art, a great collector of drawings ; he had endless help 
and ingenuity ; and was, in short, every way a very human, 
lovable, good and nimble man, — the laughing blue eyes of him, 
the clear cheery soul of him, still redolent of the fresh Northern 
breezes and transparent Mountain streams. With this Calvert, 
Sterling formed a natural intimacy ; and they were to each 
other a great possession, mutually enlivening many a dark day 
during the next three years. They did come home together this 
spring ; and subsequently made several of these health-journeys 
in partnership. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LITERATURE : THE STERLING CLUB. 

In spite of these wanderings, Sterling's course in life, so far 
as his poor life could have any course or aim beyond that of 
screening itself from swift death, was getting more and more 
clear to him ; and he pursued it diligently, in the only way per- 
mitted him, by hasty snatches, in the intervals of continual 
fluctuation, change of place and other interruption. 

Such, once for all, were the conditions appointed him. And 
it must be owned he had, with a most kindly temper, adjusted 
himself to these ; nay you would have said, he loved them ; it 
was almost as if he would have chosen them as the suitablest. 
Such an adaptation was there in him of volition to necessity :— 
for indeed they both, if well seen into, proceeded from one 
source. Sterling's bodily disease was the expression, under 
physical conditions, of the too vehement life which, under the 
moral, the intellectual and other aspects, incessantly struggled 
within him. Too vehement ; — which would have required a 
frame of oak and iron to contain it : in a thin though most 
wiry body of flesh and bone, it incessantly 'wore holes,' and so 
found outlet for itself. He could take no rest, he had never 
learned that art ; he Avas, as we often reproached him, fatally 
incapable of sitting still. Rapidity, as of pulsing auroras, as of 
dancing lightnings : rapidity in all forms characterised him. 
This, which was his bane, in many senses, being the real origin 
of his disorder, and of such continual necessity to move and 



THE STERLING CLUB. 137 

be ; enabling him to love change, and to snatch, as few others 
could have done, from the waste chaotic years, ail tumbled into 
ruin by incessant change, what hours and minutes of available 
turned up. He had an incredible facility of labour. He flashed 
with most piercing glance into a subject ; gathered it up into 
organic utterability, with truly wonderful dispatch, considering 
the success and truth attained ; and threw it on paper with a 
swift felicity, ingenuity, brilliancy and general excellence, of 
which, under such conditions of swiftness, I have never seen a 
parallel. Essentially an improviser genius ; as his Father too 
was, and of admirable completeness he too, though under a very 
different form. 

If Sterling has done little in Literature, we may ask, What 
other man than he, in such circumstances, could have done any- 
thing ? In virtue of these rapid faculties, which otherwise cost 
him so dear, he has built together, out of those wavering boiling 
quicksands of his few later years, a result which may justly sur- 
prise us. There is actually some result in those poor Two 
Volumes gathered from him, such as they are ; he that reads 
there will not wholly lose his time, nor rise with a malison in- 
stead of a blessing on the writer. Here actually is a real seer- 
glance, of some compass, into the world of our day ; blessed 
glance, once more, of an eye that is human ; truer than one of 
a thousand, and beautifully capable of making others see with it. 
I have known considerable temporary reputations gained, con- 
siderable piles of temporary guineas, with loud reviewing and 
the like to match, on a far less basis than lies in those two 
volumes. Those also, I expect, will be held in memory by the 
world, one way or other, till the world has extracted all its 
benefit from them. Graceful, ingenious and illuminative read- 
ing, of their sort, for all manner of inquiring souls. A little 
verdant flowery island of poetic intellect, of melodious human 
verity ; sunlit island founded on the rocks ; — which the enor- 
mous circumambient continents of mown reedgrass and float- 
ing lumber, with their mountain-ranges of ejected stable-litter 
however alpine, cannot by any means or chance submerge : 
nay, I expect, they will not even quite hide it, this modest little 
island, from the well-discerning ; but will float past it towards 
the place appointed for them, and leave said island standing. 
Allah kereem, say the Arabs ! And of the English also some 



138 JOHN STERLING. 

still know that there is a difference in the material of moun- 
tains ! — 

As it is this last little result, the amount of his poor and 
ever-interrupted literary labour, that henceforth forms the essen- 
tial history of Sterling, we need not dwell at too much length 
on the foreign journeys, disanchorings, and nomadic vicissitudes 
of household, which occupy his few remaining years, and which 
are only the disastrous and accidental arena of this. He had 
now, excluding his early and more deliberate residence in the 
West Indies, made two flights abroad, once with his family, 
once without, in search of health. He had two more, in rapid 
succession, to make, and many more to meditate ; and in the 
whole from Bayswater to the end, his family made no fewer 
than five complete changes of abode, for his sake. But these 
cannot be accepted as in any sense epochs in his life : the one 
last epoch of his life was that of his internal change towards 
Literature as his work in the world ; and we need not linger 
much on these, which are the mere outer accidents of that, and 
had no distinguished influence in modifying that. 

Friends still hoped the unrest of that brilliant too-rapid soul 
would abate with years. Nay the doctors sometimes promised, 
on the physical side, a like result ; prophesying that, at forty- 
five or some mature age, the stress of disease might quit the 
lungs, and direct itself to other quarters of the system. But no 
such result was appointed for us ; neither forty-five itself, nor 
the ameliorations promised then, were ever to be reached. Four 
voyages abroad, three of them without his family, in flight from 
death ; and at home, for a like reason, five complete shiftings 
of abode : in such wandering manner, and not otherwise, had 
Sterling to continue his pilgrimage till it ended. 

Once more I must say, his cheerfulness throughout was 
wonderful. A certain grimmer shade, coming gradually over 
him, might perhaps be noticed in the concluding years ; not 
impatience properly, yet the consciousness how much he needed 
patience ; something more caustic in his tone of wit, more 
trenchant and indignant occasionally in his tone of speech : but 
at no moment was his activity bewildered or abated, nor did his 
composure ever give way. No ; both his activity and his com- 
posure he bore with him, through all weathers, to the final close ; 



THE STERLING CLUB. 139 

and on the whole, right manfully he walked his wild stern way 
towards the goal, and like a Roman wrapped his mantle round 
him when he fell.— Let us glance, with brevity, at what he saw 
and suffered in his remaining pilgrimings and changings ; and 
count-up what fractions of spiritual fruit he realised to us from 
them. 

Calvert and he returned from Madeira in spring 1838. 
Mrs. Sterling and the family had lived in Knightsbridge with 
his Father's people through winter : they now changed to Black- 
heath, or ultimately Hastings, and he with them, coming up to 
London pretty often ; uncertain what was to be done for next 
winter. Literature went on briskly here : Blackwood had from 
him, besides the 0?tyr Ring which soon came out with due 
honour, assiduous almost monthly contributions in prose and 
verse. The series called Hyjnns of a Hermit was now going on ; 
eloquent melodies, tainted to me with something of the same 
disease as the Stxtoris Daughter, though perhaps in a less de- 
gree, considering that the strain was in a so much higher pitch. 
Still better, in clear eloquent prose, the series of detached 
thoughts, entitled Crystals from a Cavern j of which the set of 
fragments, generally a little larger in compass, called Thoughts 
and Images, and again those called Sayings and Essayings, 1 
are properly continuations. Add to which, his friend John Mill 
had now charge of a Review, The London and Westminster its 
name ; wherein Sterling's assistance, ardently desired, was freely 
afforded, with satisfaction to both parties, in this and the fol- 
lowing years. An Essay on Montaigne, with the notes and re- 
miniscences already spoken of, was Sterling's first contribution 
here ; then one on Simonides : 2 both of the present season. 

On these and other businesses, slight or important, he was 
often running up to London ; and gave us almost the feeling of 
his being resident among us. In order to meet the most or a 
good many of his friends at once on such occasions, he now 
furthermore contrived the scheme of a little Club, where monthly 
over a frugal dinner some reunion might take place ; that is, 
where friends of his, and withal such friends of theirs as suited, 
— and in fine, where a small select company definable as per- 
sons to whom it was pleasant to talk together, — might have a 
1 Hare, ii. 95-167. 2 xb. i. 129, 188. 



Ho JOHN STERLING. 

little opportunity of talking. The scheme was approved by the 
persons concerned : I have a copy of the Original Regulations, 
probably drawn-up by Sterling, a very solid lucid piece of eco- 
nomics ; and the List of the proposed Members, signed 'James 
Spedding, Secretary,' and dated '8th August 1838.' 3 The Club 
grew ; was at first called the Anonymous Club; then, after some 
months of success, in compliment to the founder who had now 
left us again, the Sterling Club ; — under which latter name, it 
once lately, for a time, owing to the Religious Newspapers, be- 
came rather famous in the world ! In which strange circum- 
stances the name was again altered, to suit weak brethren ; and 
the Club still subsists, in a sufficiently nourishing though hap- 
pily once more a private condition. That is the origin and 
genesis of poor Sterling's Club ; which, having honestly paid 
the shot for itself at Will's Coffeehouse or elsewhere, rashly 
fancied its bits of affairs were quite settled ; and once little 
thought of getting into Books of History with them ! — 

3 Here in a Note they are, if they can be important to anybody. The 

marks of interrogation, attached to some Names as not yet consulted or 
otherwise questionable, are in the Secretary's hand : 

J. D. Acland, Esq. H. Maiden, Esq. 

Hon. W. B. Baring. J. S. Mill, Esq. 

Rev. J. W. Blakesley. R. M. Milnes, Esq. 

W. Boxall, Esq. R. Monteith, Esq. 

T. Carlyle, Esq. S. A. O'Brien, Esq. 

Hon. R. Cavendish (?) Sir F. Palgrave (?) 

H. N. Coleridge, Esq. (?) W. F. Pollok, Esq. 

J. W. Colville, Esq. Philip Pusey, Esq. 

Allan Cunningham, Esq. (?) A. Rio, Esq. 

Rev. H. Donn. C. Romilly, Esq. 

F. H. Doyle, Esq. James Spedding, Esq. 

C. L. Eastlake, Esq. Rev. John Sterling. 
Alex. Ellice, Esq. Alfred Tennyson, Esq. 
J. F. Elliott, Esq. Rev. Connop Thirlwall. 
Copley Fielding, Esq. Rev. W. Hepworth Thompson. 
Rev. J. C. Hare. Edward Twisleton, Esq. 

Sir Edmund Head (?) G. S. Venables, Esq. 

D. D. Heath, Esq. Samuel Wood, Esq. 

G. C. Lewis, Esq. Rev. T. Worsley. 
H. L. Lushington, Esq. 

The Lord Lyttleton. James Spedding, Secretary. 

C. Macarthy, Esq. 8th August 1838. 



ITALY. 141 

But now, Autumn approaching, Sterling had to quit Clubs, 
for matters of sadder consideration. A new removal, what we 
call 'his third peregrinity,' had to be decided on ; and it was 
resolved that Rome should be the goal of it, the journey to be 
done in company with Calvert, whom also the Italian climate 
might be made to serve instead of Madeira. One of the liveliest 
recollections I have, connected with the Anonymous Club, is 
that of once escorting Sterling, after a certain meeting there, 
which I had seen only towards the end, and now remember 
nothing of, — except that, on breaking-up, he proved to be en- 
cumbered with a carpet-bag, and could not at once find a cab 
for Knightsbridge. Some small bantering hereupon, during the 
instants of embargo. But we carried his carpet-bag, slinging it 
on my stick, two or three of us alternately, through dusty vacant 
streets, under the gaslights and the stars, towards the surest 
cab-stand ; still jesting, or pretending to jest, he and we, not in 
the mirthfulest manner ; and had (I suppose) our own feelings 
about the poor Pilgrim, who was to go on the morrow, and had 
hurried to meet us in this way, as the last thing before leaving 
England. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ITALY. 

The journey to Italy was undertaken by advice of Sir 
James Clark, reckoned the chief authority in pulmonary thera- 
peutics ; who prophesied important improvements from it, and 
perhaps even the possibility henceforth of living all the year in 
some English home. Mrs. Sterling and the children continued 
in a house avowedly temporary, a furnished house at Hastings, 
through the winter. The two friends had set off for Belgium, 
while the due warmth was still in the air. They traversed Bel- 
gium, looking well at pictures and such objects ; ascended the 
Rhine ; rapidly traversed Switzerland and the Alps ; issuing 
upon Italy and Milan, with immense appetite for pictures, and 
time still to gratify themselves in that pursuit, and be deliberate 
in their approach to Rome. We will take this free-flowing sketch 
of their passage over the Alps ; written amid ' the rocks of 
Arona,' — Santo Borromco's country, and poor little MignonV! 



142 JOHN STERLING. 

The ' elder Perdonnets' are opulent Lausanne people, to whose 
late son Sterling had been very kind in Madeira the year be- 
fore : 

' To Mrs. Sterling, Knightsbridge, London. 

' Arona on the Lago Maggiore, 8th Oct. 1838. 

' My dear Mother, — I bring down the story of my pro- 
' ceedings to the present time since the 29th of September. I 
' think it must have been after that day that I was at a great 
' breakfast at the elder Perdonnets', with whom I had declined 
' to dine, not choosing to go out at night. * * * I was taken 
' by my hostess to see several pretty pleasure-grounds and points 
' of view in the neighbourhood ; and latterly Calvert was better, 
' and able to go with us. He was in force again, and our pass- 
' ports were all settled so as to enable us to start on the morn- 
' ing of the 2d, after taking leave of our kind entertainer with 
' thanks for her infinite kindness. 

' We reached St. Maurice early that evening ; having had 
' the Dent du Midi close to us for several hours; glittering like 
' the top of a silver teapot, far up in the sky. Our course lay 
' along the Valley of the Rhone ; which is considered one of the 
' least beautiful parts of Switzerland, and perhaps for this reason 
' pleased us, as we had not been prepared to expect much. We 
' saw, before reaching the foot of the Alpine pass at Brieg, two 
' rather celebrated Waterfalls ; the one the Pissevache, which 
' has no more beauty than any waterfall one hundred or two 
' hundred feet high must necessarily have : the other, near 

* Tourtemagne, is much more pleasing, having foliage round it, 
' and being in a secluded dell. If you buy a Swiss Waterfall, 

* choose this one. 

' Our second day took us through Martigny to Sion, cele- 
' brated for its picturesque towers upon detached hills, for its 
' strong Romanism and its population of cretins, — that is, 
' maimed idiots having the goitre. It looked to us a more 
' thriving place than we expected. They are building a great 
' deal ; among other things, a new Bishop's Palace and a new 
' Nunnery, — to inhabit either of which ex officio I feel myself 
' very unsuitable. From Sion we came to Brieg ; a little village 
' in a nook, close under an enormous mountain and glacier, 

* where it lies like a molehill, or something; smaller, at the foot 






ITALY. 143 

' of a haystack. Here also we slept ; and the next day our 

• voiturier, who had brought us from Lausanne, started with us 
' up the Simplon Pass ; helped on by two extra horses. 

' The beginning of the road was rather cheerful ; having a 
' good deal of green pasturage, and some mountain villages ; 
' but it soon becomes dreary and savage in aspect, and but for 
1 our bright sky and warm air, would have been truly dismal. 

• However, we gained gradually a distinct and near view of 
1 several large glaciers ; and reached at last the high and melan- 
' choly valleys of the Upper Alps ; where even the pines become 
' scanty, and no sound is heard but the wheels of one's carriage, 
' except when there happens to be a storm or an avalanche, 
' neither of which entertained us. There is, here and there, a 
' small stream of water pouring from the snow; but this is rather 
' a monotonous accompaniment to the general desolation than 
' an interruption of it. The road itself is certainly very good, 
' and impresses one with a strong notion of human power. But 
' the common descriptions are much exaggerated ; and many of 
' what the Guide-Books call "galleries" are merely parts of the 
' road supported by a wall built against the rock, and have no- 
' thing like a roof above them. The "stupendous bridges," as 
1 they are called, might be packed, a dozen together, into one 
' arch of London Bridge ; and they are seldom even very strik- 
' ing from the depth below. The roadway is excellent, and 
' kept in the best order. On the whole, I am very glad to have 

• travelled the most famous road in Europe, and to have had 
' delightful weather for doing so, as indeed we have had evei» 

• since we left Lausanne. The Italian descent is greatly more 
' remarkable than the other side. 

• We slept near the top, at the Village of Simplon, in a very 

• fair and well-warmed inn, close to a mountain stream, which 
' is one of the great ornaments of this side of the road. We 
' have here passed into a region of granite, from that of lime- 
' stone, and what is called gneiss. The valleys are sharper and 
' closer, — like cracks in a hard and solid mass ;— and there is 
' much more of the startling contrast of light and shade, as well 
' as more angular boldness of outline ; to all which the more 
' abundant waters add a fresh and vivacious interest. Looking 
' back through one of these abysmal gorges, one sees two tor- 
' rents dashing together, the precipice and ridge on one side, 



144 JOHN STERLING. 

' pitch-black with shade ; and that on the other all flaming gold ; 
' while behind rises, in a huge cone, one of the glacier summits 
' of the chain. The stream at one's feet rushes 'at a leap some 
' two hundred feet down, and is bordered with pines and beeches, 
' struggling through a ruined world of clefts and boulders. I 
' never saw anything so much resembling some of the Circles 
' described by Dante. From Simplon we made for Duomo 
' d'Ossola; -having broken out, as through the mouth of amine, 
' into green and fertile valleys full of vines and chestnuts, and 
' white villages, — in short, into sunshine and Italy. 

' At this place we dismissed our Swiss voiturier, and took 
' an Italian one ; who conveyed us to Omegna on the Lake of 
' Orta ; a place little visited by English travellers, but which 
' fully repaid us the trouble of going there. We were lodged 
' in a simple and even rude Italian inn ; where they cannot 
' speak a word of French ; where we occupied a barn-like room, 
' with a huge chimney fit to lodge a hundred ghosts, whom we 
' expelled by dint of a hot woodfire. There were two beds, and 
' as it happened good ones, in this strange old apartment ; which 

• was adorned by pictures of Architecture, and by Heads of 
' Saints, better than many at the Royal Academy Exhibition, 
' and which one paid nothing for looking at. The thorough 
' Italian character of the whole scene amused us, much more 
' than Meurice's at Paris would have done ; for we had voluble, 

• commonplace good humour, with the aspect and accessories 

• of a den of banditti. 

' Today we have seen the Lake of Orta, have walked for 
' some miles among its vineyards and chestnuts ; and thence 
' have come, by Baveno, to this place; — having seen by the 
' way, I believe, the most beautiful part of the Lago Maggiore, 
' and certainly the most cheerful, complete and extended ex- 
' ample of line scenery I have ever fallen-in with. Here we are, 
' much to my wonder, — for it seems too good to be true, — fairly 
' in Italy ; and as yet my journey has been a pleasanter and 
' more instructive, and in point of health a more successful one, 
' than I at all imagined possible. Calvert and I go on as well 
' as can be. I let him have his way about natural science, and 
' he only laughs benignly when he thinks me absurd in my 
4 moral speculations. My only regrets are caused by my separ,a- 

• tion from my family and friends, and by the hurry I have been 



ITALY. 145 

• living in, which has prevented me doing any work, — and com- 
' pelled me to write to you at a good deal faster rate than the 
' vapore moves on the Lago Maggiore. It will take me to- 
' morrow to Sesto Calende, whence we go to Varese. We shall 

• not be at Milan for some days. Write thither, if you are kind 
' enough to write at all, till I give you another address. Love 
' to my Father, — Your affectionate son, John Sterling.' 

Omitting Milan, Florence nearly all, and much about 'Art,' 
Michael Angelo, and other aerial matters, here are some select 
terrestrial glimpses, the fittest I can find, of his progress to- 
wards Rome : 

Lucca, Nov. 2jth, 1838 (To his Mother). — ' I had dreams, 
' like other people, before I came here, of what the Lombard 
' Lakes must be ; and the week I spent among them has left 
' me an image, not only more distinct, but far more warm, 
1 shining and various, and more deeply attractive in innumer- 

• able respects, than all I had before conceived of them. And 
' so also it has been with Florence ; where I spent three weeks : 
' enough for the first hazy radiant dawn of sympathy to pass 
' away ; yet constantly adding an increase of knowledge and of 
' love, while I examined, and tried to understand, the wonderful 
' minds that have left behind them there such abundant traces 

• of their presence.' — ' On Sunday, the day before I left Flor- 
' ence, I went to the highest part of the Grand Duke's Garden 

• of Boboli, which commands a view of most of the City, and of 
' the vale of the Arno to the westward; where, as we had been 
' visited by several rainy days, and now at last had a very fine 

• one, the whole prospect was in its highest beauty. The mass 
' of buildings, chiefly on the other side of the River, is sufficient 
' to fill the eye, without perplexing the mind by vastness like 
' that of London ; and its name and history, its outline and large 
' and picturesque buildings, give it grandeur of a higher order 
' than that of mere multitudinous extent. The Hills that border 
' the Valley of the Arno are also very pleasing and striking to 
' look upon ; and the view of the rich Plain, glimmering away 
' into blue distance, covered with an endless web of villages and 
' country-houses, is one of the most delightful images of human 
' well-being I have ever seen.' — 

' Very shortly before leaving Florence, I went through the 

L 



146 JOHN STERLING. 

' house of Michael Angelo ; which is still possessed by persons 

• of the same family, descendants, I believe, of his Nephew. 
' There is in it his "first work in marble," as it is called ; and 
' a few drawings, — all with the stamp of his enginery upon them, 
' which was more powerful than all the steam in London.' — 
' On the whole, though I have done no work in Florence that 

• can be of any use or pleasure to others, except my Letters to 
' my Wife, — I leave it with the certainty of much valuable know- 

• ledge gained there, and with a most pleasant remembrance of 
' the busy and thoughtful days I owe to it. 

' We left Florence before seven yesterday morning,' 26th 
November, ' for this place ; travelling on the northern side of 
' the Arno, by Prato, Pistoia, Pescia. We tried to see some 
' old frescoes in a Church at Prato ; but found the Priests all 
' about, saying mass ; and of course did not venture to put our 
' hands into a hive where the bees were buzzing and on the 
' wing. Pistoia we only coasted. A little on one side of it, 
' there is a Hill, the first on the road from Florence; which we 
' walked up, and had a very lively and brilliant prospect over 
' the road we had just travelled, and the town of Pistoia. 
' Thence to this place the whole land is beautiful, and in the 
' highest degree prosperous, — in short, to speak metaphorically, 
' ail dotted with Leghorn bonnets, and streaming with olive-oil. 
' The girls here are said to employ themselves chiefly in platting 
' straw, which is a profitable employment ; and the slightness 
' and quiet of the work are said to be much more favourable to 
' beauty than the coarser kinds of labour performed by the coun- 
' try-women elsewhere. Certain it is that I saw more pretty wo- 
1 men in Pescia, in the hour I spent there, than I ever before met 

• with among the same numbers of the "phare sect." Where- 
' fore, as a memorial of them, I bought there several Legends 
' of Female Saints and Martyrs, and of other Ladies quite the 
' reverse, and held-up as warnings ; all of which are written in 
' ottava rima, and sold for three-halfpence apiece. But un- 
' happily I have not yet had time to read them. This Town 
' has 30,000 inhabitants, and is surrounded by Walls, laid-out 
' as walks, and evidently not at present intended to.be besieged, 
' — for which reason, this morning, I merely walked on them 
1 round the Town, and did not besiege them.' 



ITALY. 147 

' The Cathedral' of Lucca ' contains some Relics ; which 
1 have undoubtedly worked miracles on the imagination of the 

* people hereabouts. The Grandfather of all Relics (as the 
' Arabs would say) in the place is the Volto Santo, which is a 

• Face of the Saviour appertaining to a wooden Crucifix. Now 
' you must know that, after the ascension of Christ, Nicodemus 
' was ordered by an Angel to carve an image of him ; and went 

* accordingly with a hatchet, and cut down a cedar for that 
' purpose. He then proceeded to carve the figure ; and being 
' tired, fell asleep before he had done the face ; which however, 
' on awaking, he found completed by celestial aid. This image 
' was brought to Lucca, from Leghorn, I think, where it had 
' arrived in a ship, " more than a thousand years ago," and has 
' ever since been kept, in purple and fine linen and gold and 
' diamonds, quietly working miracles. I saw the gilt Shrine of 
' it; and also a Hatchet which refused to cut off the head of an 
' innocent man, who had been condemned to death, and who 
1 prayed to the Volto Santo. I suppose it is by way of economy 
' (they being a frugal people) that the Italians have their Book 
' of Common Prayer and their Arabian Nights' Entertainments 
' condensed into one.' 

Pisa, December 2d, 1838 (To the same). — ' Pisa is very un- 
' fairly treated in all the Books I have read. It seems to me a 
' quiet, but very agreeable place ; with wide clean streets, and 
' a look of stability and comfort ; and I admire the Cathedral 
' and its appendages more, the more I see them. The leaning 

* of the Tower is to my eye decidedly unpleasant ; but it is a 
' beautiful building nevertheless, and the view from the top is, 
' under a bright sky, remarkably lively and satisfactory. The 
' Lucchese Hills form a fine mass, and the sea must in clear 

• weather be very distinct. There was some haze over it when 
« I was up, though the land was all clear. I could just see the 

• Leghorn Lighthouse. Leghorn itself I shall not be able to 
*■ visit.' — 

' The quiet gracefulness of Italian life, and the mental 
' maturity and vigour of Germany, have a great charm when 
' compared with the restless whirl of England, and the chorus 
' of mingled yells and groans sent-up by our parties and sects, 
' and by the suffering and bewildered crowds of the labouring 



148 JOHN STERLING. 

4 people. Our politics make my heart ache, whenever I think 
' of them. The base selfish frenzies of factions seem to me, 
' at this distance, half diabolic ; and I am out of the way of 
' knowing anything that may be quietly adoing to elevate the 
' standard of wise and temperate manhood in the country, and 
' to diffuse the means of physical and moral wellbeing among 
' all the people.' — ' I will write to my Father as soon as I can 
' after reaching the capital of his friend the Pope, — who, if he 

* had happened to be born an English gentleman, would no 

* doubt by this time be a respectable old-gentlemanly gouty 

* member of the Carlton. I have often amused myself by think- 
' ing what a mere accident it is that Phillpotts is not Archbishop 
1 of Tuam, and M'Hale Bishop of Exeter ; and how slight a 
' change of dress, and of a few catchwords, would even now 
' enable them to fill those respective posts with all the propriety 
' and discretion they dispkry in their present positions.' 

At Rome he found the Crawfords, known to him long since ; 
and at different dates other English friends old and new ; and 
was altogether in the liveliest humour, no end to his activities 
and speculations. Of all which, during the next four months, 
the Letters now before me give abundant record, — far too 
abundant for our objects here. His grand pursuit, as natural 
at Rome, was Art ; into which metaphysical domain we shall 
not follow him ; preferring to pick out, here and there, some- 
thing of concrete and human. Of his interests, researches, 
speculations and descriptions on this subject of Art, there is 
always rather a superabundance, especially in the Italian Tour. 
Unfortunately, in the hard weather, poor Calvert fell ill ; and 
Sterling, along with his Art-studies, distinguished himself as a 
sick-nurse till his poor comrade got afoot again. His gene- 
ral impressions of the scene and what it held for him may be 
read in the following excerpts. The Letters are all dated Rome, 
and addressed to his Father or Mother : 

Decembei' list, 1838. — 'Of Rome itself, as a whole, there 
' are infinite things to be said, well worth saying ; but I shall 
' confine myself to two remarks : first, that while the Monu- 
' men is and works of Art gain in wondrousness and signifi- 
■ cance by familiarity with them, the actual life of Rome, the 
' Papacy and its pride, lose ; and though one gets accustomed 



ITALY. 149 

■ to Cardinals and Friars and Swiss Guards, and ragged beg- 

• gars and the finery of London and Paris, all rolling on to- 
' gether, and sees how it is that they subsist in a sort of spurious 

• unity, one loses all tendency to idealise the Metropolis and 
' System of the Hierarchy into anything higher than a piece 
1 of showy stage-declamation, at bottom, in our day, thoroughly 
' mean and prosaic. My other remark is, that Rome, seen 
' from the tower of the Capitol, from the Pincian or the Jani- 
' culum, is at this day one of the most beautiful spectacles which 

• eyes ever beheld. The company of great domes rising from 
\ a mass of large and solid buildings, with a few stone-pines 
' and scattered edifices on the outskirts ; the broken bare Cam- 
' pagna all around ; the Alban Hills not far, and the purple 
' range of Sabine Mountains in the distance with a cope of 

• snow ; — this seen in the clear air, and the whole spiritualised 
' by endless recollections, and a sense of the grave and lofty 
' reality of human existence which has had this place for a 

• main theatre, fills at once the eyes and heart more forcibly, 

• and to me delightfully, than I can find words to say.' 

January 22a 1 , 1839. — 'The Modern Rome, Pope and all 
' inclusive, are a shabby attempt at something adequate to fill 

• the place of the old Commonwealth. It is easy enough to live 
' among them, and there is much to amuse and even interest 
1 a spectator ; but the native existence of the place is now thin 
' and hollow, and there is a stamp of littleness, and childish 
' poverty of taste, upon all the great Christian buildings I have 
•seen here, — not excepting St. Peter's; which is crammed 

• with bits of coloured marble and gilding, and Gog-and-Magog 
' colossal statues of saints (looking prodigiously small), and 
' mosaics from the worst pictures in Rome ; and has altoge- 
' ther, with most imposing size and lavish splendour, a tang of 

• Guildhall finery about it that contrasts oddly with the mel- 
' ancholy vastness and simplicity of the Ancient Monuments, 
' though these have not the Athenian elegance. I recur per- 
' petually to the galleries of sculpture in the Vatican, and to 

• the Frescoes 01 Raffael and Michael Angelo, of inexhaustible 
' beauty and greatness, and to the general aspect of the City 

• and the Country round it, as the most impressive scene on 
' earth. But the Modern City, with its churches, palaces, priests 
' and beggars, is far from sublime.' 



150 JOHN STERLING. 

Of about the same date, here is another paragraph worth 
inserting : ' Gladstone has three little agate crosses, which he 
' will give you for my little girls. Calvert bought them, as a 
' present, for "the bodies," at Martigny in Switzerland, and I 
' have had no earlier opportunity of sending them. Will you 
' dispatch them to Hastings when you have an opportunity ? 
' I have not yet seen Gladstone's Church and State; but as 
' there is a copy in Rome, I hope soon to lay hands on it. I 
' saw yesterday in the Times a furious, and I am sorry to say, 
' most absurd attack on him and it, and the new Oxonian 
' school.' 

February i%lh, 1 839. — ' There is among the people plenty 
' of squalid misery ; though not nearly so much as, they say, 

• exists in Ireland ; and here there is a certain freedom and 
' freshness of manners, a dash of Southern enjoyment in the 

* condition of the meanest and most miserable. There is, I 
' suppose, as little as well can be of conscience or artificial 
' cultivation of any kind ; but there is not the affectation of a 
' virtue which they do not possess, nor any feeling of being 
' despised for the want of it ; and where life generally is so 
' inert, except as to its passions and material wants, there is not 
' the bitter consciousness of having been beaten by the more 
' prosperous, in a race which the greater number have never 

* thought of running. Among the labouring poor of Rome, a 
' bribe will buy a crime ; but if common work procures enough 
' for a day's food or idleness, ten times the sum will not induce 
' them to toil on, as an English workman would, for the sake 
' of rising in the world. Sixpence any day will put any of 
' them at the top of the only tree they care for, — that on which 

• grows the fruit of idleness. It is striking to see the way in 
' which, in magnificent churches, the most ragged beggars 
' kneel on the pavement before some favourite altar in the 
' midst of well-dressed women and of gazing foreigners. Or 
' sometimes you will see one with a child come in from the 
' street where she has been begging, put herself in a corner, say 
' a prayer (probably for the success of her petitions), and then 
1 return to beg again. There is wonderfully little of any moral 

* strength connected with this devotion ; but still it is better 
' than nothing, and more than is often found among the men 

• of the upper classes in Rome. I believe the Clergy to be 



ITALY. 151 

' generally profligate, and the state of domestic morals as bad 
' as it has ever been represented.' — ■ 

Or, in sudden contrast, take this other glance homeward ; 
a Letter to his eldest child ; in which kind of Letters, more 
than in any other, Sterling seems to me to excel. Readers 
recollect the hurricane in St. Vincent ; the hasty removal to a 
neighbour's house, and the birth of a son there, soon after. The 
boy has grown to some articulation, during these seven years ; 
and his Father, from the new foreign scene of Priests and Di- 
lettanti, thus addresses him : 

' To Master Edward C. Sterling, Hastings. 

' Rome, 21st January 1839. 

' My dear Edward, — I was very glad to receive your Let-- 
' ter, which showed me that you have learned something since 
' I left home. If you knew how much pleasure it gave me 
' to see your handwriting, I am sure you would take pains to 
' be able to write well, that you might often send me letters, 
• and tell me a great many things which I should like to know 
' about Mamma and your Sisters as well as yourself. 

' If I go to Vesuvius, I will try to carry away a bit of the 
' lava, which you wish for. There has lately been a great erup- 
' tion, as it is called, of that Mountain ; which means a great 
' breaking-out of hot ashes and fire, and of melted stones which 
' is called lava. 

4 Miss Clark is very kind to take so much pains with you ; 
' and I trust you will show that you are obliged to her, by pay- 
' ing attention to all she tells you. When you see how much 
' more grown people know than you, you ought to be anxious 
' to learn all you can from those who teach you ; and as there 
' are so many wise and good things written in Books, you ought 
' to try to read early and carefully; that you may learn scmc- 
' thing of what God has made you able to know. There are 
' Libraries containing very many thousands of Volumes ; and 
' all that is written in these is, — accounts of some part or other 
1 of the World which God has made, or of the Thoughts which 
' he has enabled men to have in their minds. Some Books are 
' descriptions of the earth itself, with its rocks and ground and 
' water, and of the air and clouds, and the stars and moon and 
' sun, which shine so beautifully in the sky. Some tell you about 



152 JOHN STERLING. 

' the things that grow upon the ground ; the many millions of 
1 plants, from little mosses and threads of grass up to great 
1 trees and forests. Some also contain accounts of living things : 
' flies, worms, fishes, birds and four-legged beasts. And some, 
1 which are the most, are about men and their thoughts and 
' doings. These are the most important of all ; for men are 
' the best and most wonderful creatures of God in the world ; 
' being the only ones able to know him and love him, and to 
' try of their own accord to do his will. 

' These Books about men are also the most important to 
' us, because we ourselves are human beings, and may learn 
' from such Books what we ought to think and to do and to 
' try to be. Some of them describe what sort of people have 
' lived in old times and in other countries. By reading them, 
' we know what is the difference between ourselves in England 
' now, and the famous nations which lived in former days. Such 
' were the Egyptians who built the Pyramids, which are the 
' greatest heaps of stone upon the face of the earth : and the 
' Babylonians, who had a city with huge walls, built of bricks, 
' having writing on them that no one in our time has been able 
' to make out. There were also the Jews, who were the only 
' ancient people that knew how wonderful and how good God 
' is : and the Greeks, who were the wisest of all in thinking 
' about men's lives and hearts, and who knew best how to make 
' fine statues and buildings, and to write wise books. By Books 
' also we may learn what sort of people the old Romans were, 
' whose chief city was Rome, where I am now ; and how brave 
' and skilful they were in war ; and how well they could govern 
' and teach many nations which they had conquered. It is from 
' Books, too, that you must learn what kind of men were our 
• Ancestors in the Northern part of Europe, who belonged to 
' the tribes that did the most towards pulling-down the power 
' of the Romans : and you will see in the same way how Chris- 
' tianity was sent among them by God, to make them wiser and 
' more peaceful, and more noble in their minds ; and how all 
' the nations that now are in Europe, and especially the Italians 
' and the Germans, and the French and the English, came to 
' be what they now are. — It is well worth knowing (and it can 
' be known only by reading) how the Germans found out the 
1 Printing of Books, and what great changes this has made in 



ITALY. 153 

1 the world. And everybody in England ought to try to under- 
' stand how the English came to have their Parliaments and 
' Laws ; and to have fleets that sail over all seas of the world. 

' Besides learning all these things, and a great many more 
' about different times and countries, you may learn from Books, 

* what is the truth of God's will, and what are the best and wisest 
' thoughts, and the most beautiful words ; and how men are able 
' to lead very right lives, and to do a great deal to better the 
' world. I have spent a great part of my life in reading ; and 

* I hope you will come to like it as much as I do, and to learn 
' in this way all that I know. 

• But it is a still more serious matter that you should try to 
' be obedient and gentle ; and to command your temper ; and 
' to think of other people's pleasure rather than your own, and 

* of what you ought to do rather than what you like. If you 
' try to be better for all you read, as well as wiser, you will find 
' Books a great help towards goodness as well as knowledge, — 
' and above all other Books, the Bible ; which tells us of the 
' will of God, and of the love of Jesus Christ towards God and 
''men. 

' I had a Letter from Mamma today, which left Hastings 
' on the 1 oth of this month. I was very glad to find in it that 
' you were all well and happy ; but I know Mamma is not well, 
' — and is likely to be more uncomfortable every day for some 
' time. So I hope you will all take care to give her as little 
' trouble as possible. After sending you so much advice, I shall 
1 write a little Story to divert you. — I am, my dear Boy, — Your 
1 affectionate Father, John Sterling.' 

The ' Story' is lost, destroyed, as are many such which 
Sterling wrote, with great felicity, I am told, and much to the 
satisfaction of the young folk, when the humour took him. 

Besides these plentiful communications still left, I remember 
long Letters, not now extant, principally addressed to his Wife, 
of which we and the circle at Knightsbridge had due perusal, 
treating with animated copiousness about all manner of picture- 
galleries, pictures, statues and objects of Art at Rome, and on 
the road to Rome and from it, wheresoever his course led him 
into neighbourhood of such objects. That was Sterling's habit. 



154 JOHN STERLING. 

It is expected in this Nineteenth Century that a man of culture 
shall understand and worship Art : among the windy gospels 
addressed to our poor Century there are few louder than this 
of Art ; — and jf the Century expects that every man shall do 
his duty, surely Sterling was not the man to balk it ! Various 
extracts from these picture-surveys are given in Hare ; the others, 
I suppose, Sterling himself subsequently destroyed, not valuing 
them much. 

Certainly no stranger could address himself more eagerly to 
reap what artistic harvest Rome offers, which is reckoned the 
peculiar produce of Rome among cities under the sun ; to all 
galleries, churches, sistine chapels, ruins, coliseums, and artistic 
or dilettante shrines he zealously pilgrimed ; and had much to 
say then and afterwards, and with real technical and historical 
knowledge I believe, about the objects of devotion there. But 
it often struck me as a question, Whether all this even to him- 
self was not, more or less, a nebulous kind of element ; pre- 
scribed not by Nature and her verities, but by the Century ex- 
pecting every man to do his duty? Whether not perhaps, in 
good part, temporary dilettante cloudland of our poor Century ; 
— or can it be the real diviner Pisgah-height, and everlasting 
mount of vision, for man's soul in any Century ? And I think 
Sterling himself bent towards a negative conclusion, in the course 
of years. Certainly, of all subjects this was the one I cared least 
to hear even Sterling talk of : indeed it is a subject on -which 
earnest men, abhorrent of hypocrisy and speech that has no 
meaning, are admonished to silence in this sad time, and had 
better, in such a Babel as we have got into for the present, ' pe- 
rambulate their picture-gallery with little or no speech.' 

Here is another and to me much more earnest kind of 'Art,' 
which renders Rome unique among the cities of the world ; of this 
we will, in preference, take a glance through Sterling's eyes : 

January 22d, 1 839. — ' On Friday last there was a great Fes- 
' tival at St. Peter's; the only one I have seen. The Church was 
' decorated with crimson hangings, and the choir fitted-up with 
' seats and galleries, and a throne for the Pope. There were 
' perhaps a couple of hundred guards of different kinds ; and 
' three or four hundred English ladies, and not so many foreign 
* male spectators ; so that the place looked empty. The Car- 
' dinals in scarlet, and Monsignori in purple, were there ; and 



ITALY. 155 

' a body of officiating Clergy. The Pope was carried-in in his 
' chair on men's shoulders, wearing the Triple Crown ; which 
1 I have thus actually seen : it is something like a gigantic Egg, 
' and of the same colour, with three little bands of gold, — very 
' large Eggshell with three streaks of the yolk smeared round it. 
' He was dressed in white silk robes, with gold trimmings. 

• It was a fine piece of state-show ; though, as there are 
' three or four such Festivals yearly, of course there is none of 
' the eager interest which breaks-out at coronations and similar 
' rare events ; no explosion of unwonted velvets, jewels, car- 
' riages and footmen, such as London and Milan have lately 
' enjoyed. I guessed all the people in St. Peter's, including 

• performers and spectators, at 2000 ; where 20,000 would 
' hardly have been a crushing crowd. Mass was performed, 
' and a stupid but short Latin sermon delivered by a lad, in 
' honour of St. Peter, who would have been much astonished 
' if he could have heard it. The genuflexions, and trainbear- 
' ings, and folding-up the tails of silk-petticoats while the Pon- 
' tiff knelt, and the train of Cardinals going up to kiss his Ring, 
' and so forth, — made on me the impression of something im- 
' measurably old and sepulchral, such as might suit the Grand 
' Lama's court, or the inside of an Egyptian Pyramid ; or as 
' if the Hieroglyphics on one of the Obelisks here should begin 
' to pace and gesticulate, and nod their bestial heads upon the 
' granite tablets. The careless bystanders, the London ladies 
' with their eye-glasses and look of an Opera-box, the yawning 
' young gentlemen of the Guarda Nob-lie, and the laugh of one 
' of the file of vermilion Priests round the steps of the altar at 
' the whispered good thing of his neighbour, brought one back 
' to nothing indeed of a very lofty kind, but still to the Nine- 
' teenth century.' — 

' At the great Benediction of the City and the World on 
' Easter Sunday by the Pope,' he writes afterwards, ' there was 
' a large crowd both native and foreign, hundreds of carriages, 

• and thousands of the lower orders of people from the country ; 

• but even of the poor hardly one in twenty took off his hat, 
' and a still smaller number knelt down. A few years ago, not 
' a head was covered, nor was there a knee which did not bow.' 
— A very decadent '* Holiness of our Lord the Pope," it would 
appear ! — 



i$6 JOHN STERLING. 

Sterling's view of the Pope, as seen in these his gala days, 
doing his big playactorism under God's earnest sky, was much 
more substantial to me than his studies in the picture-galleries. 
To Mr. Hare also he writes : • I have seen the Pope in all his 
' pomp at St. Peter's ; and he looked to me a mere lie in livery. 
' The Romish Controversy is doubtless a much more difficult 
' one than the managers of the Religious-Tract Society fancy, 

• because it is a theoretical dispute ; and in dealing with no- 
' tions and authorities, I can quite understand how a mere 

• student in a library, with no eye for facts, should take either 
' one side or other. But how any man with clear head and 
' honest heart, and capable of seeing realities, and distinguish- 

• ing them from scenic falsehoods, should, after living in a 
' Romanist country, and especially at Rome, be inclined to 
' side with Leo against Luther, I cannot understand.' 1 

It is fit surely to recognise with admiring joy any glimpse 
of the Beautiful and the Eternal that is hung out for us, in 
colour, in form or tone, in canvas, stone, or atmospheric air, 
and made accessible by any sense, in this world : but it is 
greatly fitter still (little as we are used that way) to shudder 
in pity and abhorrence over the scandalous tragedy, trans- 
cendent nadir of human ugliness and contemptibility, which 
under the daring title of religious worship, and practical recog- 
nition of the Highest God, daily and hourly everywhere trans- 
acts itself there. And, alas, not there only, but elsewhere, 
everywhere more or less ; whereby our sense is so blunted to 
it ; — whence, in all provinces of human life, these tears ! — 

But let us take a glance at the Carnival, since we are here. 
The Letters, as before, are addressed to Knightsbridge ; the 
date Rome : 

February $th, 1839. — 'The Carnival began yesterday. It 
' is a curious example of the trifling things which will heartily 
' amuse tens oi thousands of grown people, precisely because 

• they are trifling, and therefore a relief from serious business, 
' cares and labours. The Corso is a street about a mile long, 
1 and about as broad as Jermyn Street ; but bordered by much 
' loftier houses, with many palaces and churches, and has two 

• or three small squares opening into it. Carriages, mostly 
1 open, drove up and down it for two or three hours ; and the 

1 Hare, p. cxviii. 



ITALY. 157 

• contents were shot at with handfuls of comfits from the win- 

• dows, — in the hope of making them as non-content as pos- 
' sible, — while they returned the fire to the best of their inferior 
' ability. The populace, among whom was I, walked about ; 
' perhaps one in fifty were masked in character ; but there 
' was little in the masquerade either of splendour of costume 
' or liveliness of mimicry. However, the whole scene was very 
' gay ; there were a good many troops about, and some of 
' them heavy dragoons, who flourished their swords with the 
' magnanimity of our Life-Guards, to repel the encroachments 
' of too-ambitious little boys. Most of the windows and bal- 
' conies were hung with coloured drapery ; and there were 
' flags, trumpets, nosegays and flirtations of all shapes and 
' sizes. The best of all was, that there was laughter enough 
' to have frightened Cassius out of his thin carcass, could the 
' lean old homicide have been present, otherwise than as a 
' fleshless ghost ; — in which capacity I thought I had a glimpse 

• of him looking over the shoulder of a parti-coloured clown, 
' in a carriage full of London Cockneys driving towards the 
' Capitol. This good-humoured foolery will go on for several 
' days to come, ending always with the celebrated Horse-race, 
' of horses without riders. The long street is cleared in the 
' centre by troops, and half-a-dozen quadrupeds, ornamented 
' like Grimaldi in a London pantomime, scamper away, with 
' the mob closing and roaring at their heels.' 

February gtk, 1839. — 'The usual state of Rome is quiet 

• and sober. One could almost fancy the actual generation 
' held their breath, and stole-by on tiptoe, in presence of so 
' memorable a past. But during the Carnival all mankind, 
' womankind and chiidkind think it unbecoming not to play 
' the iool. The modern donkey pokes its head out of the lion's 
' skin of old Rome, and brays-out the absurdest of asinine 
' roundelays. Conceive twenty thousand grown people in a 
' long street, at the windows, on the footways, and in carriages, 
' amused day after day for several hours in pelting and being 
' pelted with handfuls oi mock or real sugar-plums ; and this 

• no name or pretence, but real downright showers of plaster 
' comfits, from which people guard their eyes with meshes of 
' wire. As sure as a carriage passes under a window or balcony 
' where are acquaintances of theirs, down comes a shower of 



158 JOHN STERLING. 

' hail, ineffectually returned from below. The parties in two 
' crossing carriages similarly assault each other ; and there are 
' long balconies hung the whole way with a deep canvas pocket 
' full of this mortal shot. One Russian Grand Duke goes with 
c a troop of youngsters in a wagon, all dressed in brown linen 
' frocks and masked, and pelts among the most furious, also 
' being pelted. The children are of course preeminently vigor- 
' ous, and there is a considerable circulation of real sugar-plums, 
' which supply consolation for all disappointments.' 

The whole to conclude, as is proper, with a display, with 
two displays, of fire-works; in which art, as in some others, 
Rome is unrivalled : 

February gtk, 1839. — ' It seems to be the ambition of all 
' the lower classes to wear a mask and showy grotesque dis- 
' guise of some kind ; and I believe many of the upper ranks 
' do the same. They even put St. Peter's into masquerade ; 
' and make it a Cathedral of Lamplight instead of a stone one. 
1 Two evenings ago this feat was performed ; and I was able 
' to see it from the rooms of a friend near this, which command 
' an excellent view of it. I never saw so beautiful an effect of 
' artificial light. The evening was perfectly serene and clear ; 
' the principal lines of the building, the columns, architrave and 
' pediment of the front, the two inferior cupolas, the curves of 
* the dome from which the dome rises, the ribs of the dome 
' itself, the small oriel windows between them, and the lantern 
' and ball and cross, — all were delineated in the clear vault of 
' air by lines of pale yellow fire. The dome of another great 
' Church, much nearer to the eye, stood up as a great black 
' mass,' — a funereal contrast to the luminous tabernacle. 

' While I was looking at this latter, a red blaze burst from 
' the summit, and at the same moment seemed to flash over 
' the whole building, filling-up the pale outline with a simul- 
' taneous burst of fire. This is a celebrated display ; and is 
' done, I believe, by the employment of a very great number of 
' men to light, at the same instant, the torches which are fixed 
' for the purpose all over the building. After the first glare 
' of fire, 1 did not think the second aspect of the building so 
' beautiful as the first ; it wanted both softness and distinct- 
' ness. The two most animated days of the Carnival are still 
' to come.' 



ITALY. 159 

April ^th, 1839. — ' W<2 have just come to the termination 
' of all the Easter spectacles here. On Sunday evening St. 
' Peter's was a second time illuminated * I was in the Piazza, 
' and admired the sight from a nearer point than when I had 
' seen it before at the time of the Carnival. 

' On Monday evening the celebrated fire-works were let-off 
' from the Castle of St. Angelo ; they were said to be, in some 
' respects, more brilliant than usual. I certainly never saw any 
' fire-works comparable to them for beauty. The Girandola is 
' a discharge of many thousands of rockets at once, which of 
' course fall back, like the leaves of a lily, and form for a minute 
' a very beautiful picture. There was also in silvery light a 
' very long Facade of a Palace, which looked a residence for 

* Oberon and Titania, and beat Aladdin's into darkness. After- 
' wards a series of cascades of red fire poured down the faces 
' of the Castle and of the scaffoldings round it, and seemed a 
1 burning Niagara. Of course there were abundance of serpents, 
' wheels and cannon-shot ; there was also a display of dazzling 
' white light, which made a strange appearance on the houses, 
' the river, the bridge, and the faces of the multitude. The 
' whole ended with a second and a more splendid Girandola.' 

Take finally, to people the scene a little for us, if our ima- 
gination be at all lively, these three small entries, of differ?*: 
dates, and so wind-up : 

December 30M, 1838. — 'I received on CW- ^ s ~ d * y a 

' packet from Dr. Carlyle; containing J - - ' x ™ m ^ 

T-i mi arrival. The Dr. wrote 

' rices; which were a very. -. -- ■ *™ clLllvai - . 

' a few lines jBt*a^**~-*'> mentioning that he was only at Civita 

v eccnia while the steamer baited on its way to Naples. I 

' have written to thank him for his despatches.' 

March 16th, 1839. — *I have seen a good deal of John 

« Mill, whose society I like much. He enters heartily into the 

* interest of the things which I most care for here, and I have 
< seldom had more pleasure than in taking him to see RaffaeVs 
« Loggie, where are the Frescoes called his Bible, and to the 

* Sixtine Chapel, which I admire and love more and more. He 
' is in very weak health, but as fresh and clear in mind as 
' possible.' * * * ' English politics seem in a queer state, the 
1 Conservatives creeping on, the Whigs losing ground ; like 



160 JOHN STERLING. 

• combatants on the top of a breach, while there is a social 

• mine below which will probably blow both parties into the air.' 

April 4?/i, 1 839. — ' I walked out on Tuesday on the Ancona 
' Road, and about noon met a travelling carriage, which from a 

• distance looked very suspicious, and on nearer approach was 
' found really to contain Captain Sterling and an Albanian man- 
' servant on the front, and behind under the hood Mrs. A. 
' Sterling and the she portion of the tail. They seemed very 
' well ; and, having turned the Albanian back to the rear of 
' the whole machine, I sat by Anthony, and entered Rome in 
' triumph.' — Here is indeed a conquest ! Captain A. Sterling, 
now on his return from service in Corfu, meets his Brother in 
this manner ; and the remaining Roman days are of a brighter 
complexion. As these suddenly ended, I believe he turned 
southward, and found at Naples the Dr. Carlyle above men- 
tioned (an extremely intimate acquaintance of mine), who was 
still there. For we are a most travelling people, we of this 
Island in this time ; and, as the Prophet threatened, see our- 
selves, in so many senses, made ' like unto a wheel !' — 

Sterling returned from Italy filled with much cheerful imagery 
and reminiscence, and great store of artistic, serious, dilettant 
~\\d other speculation for the time; improved in health, too; 

", :obably little enriched in real culture or spiritual strength ; 

*".' not permanently altered by his tour in any respect 
to a sensible ^ . ., , ■, 1 i- TT _j 1-l 

. , . ; T>t, that one could notice. He returned rather 

m iTVf ^ rC 2" ^ted time ; summoned, about the 
middle of April, by his Wife's GO, .v situatlon at Hastings ; 
who, poor lady, had been brought to Deu uu,, \, Pr calcu- 
lation, and had in few days lost her infant ; and now saw a 
household round her much needing the master's presence. He 
hurried off to Malta, dreading the Alps at that season ; and 
came home, by steamer, with all speed, early in May 1839. 



PART THIRD. 

CHAPTER I. 

CLIFTON. 

Matters once' readjusted at Hastings, it was thought Sterling's 
health had so improved, and his activities towards Literature 
so developed themselves into congruity, that a permanent English 
place of abode might now again be selected, — on the South-west 
coast somewhere, — and the family once more have the blessing 
of a home, and see its /ares and penates and household furniture 
unlocked from the Pantechnicon repositories, where they had 
so long been lying. 

Clifton, by Bristol, with its soft Southern winds and high 
cheerful situation, recommended too by the presence of one or 
more valuable acquaintances there, was found to be the eligible 
place; and thither in this summer of 1839, having found a 
tolerable lodging, with the prospect by and by of an agreeable 
house, he and his removed. This was the end of what I call 
his 'third peregrinity ;' — or reckoning the' West Indies one, his 
fourth. This also is, since Bayswater, the fourth time his family 
has had to shift on his account. Bayswater ; then to Bordeaux, 
to Blackheath and Knightsbridge (during the Madeira time), to 
Hastings (Roman time) ; and now to Clifton, not to stay there 
either : a sadly nomadic life to be prescribed to a civilised man ! 

At Clifton his habitation was speedily enough set up ; house- 
hold conveniences, methods of work, daily promenades on foot 
or horseback, and before long even a circle of friends, or of 
kindly neighbourhoods ripening into intimacy, were established 
round him. In all this no man could be more expert or expe- 
ditious, in such cases. It was with singular facility, in a loving, 

M 



1 62 JOHN STERLING. 

hoping manner, that he threw himself open to the new interests 
and capabilities of the new place ; snatched out of it whatsoever 
of human or material would suit him ; and in brief, in all senses 
had pitched his tent-habitation, and grew to look on it as a 
house. It was beautiful too, as well as pathetic. This man 
saw himself reduced to be a dweller indents, his house is but a 
stone tent ; and he can so kindly accommodate himself to that 
arrangement ; — healthy faculty and diseased necessity, nature 
and habit, and all manner of things primary and secondary, 
original and incidental, conspiring now to make it easy for 
him. With the evils of nomadism, he participated to the full 
in whatever benefits lie in it for a man. 

He had friends enough, old and new, at Clifton, whose 
intercourse made the place human for him. Perhaps among 
the most valued of the former sort may be mentioned Mrs. 
Edward Strachey, Widow of the late Indian Judge, who now 
resided here ; a cultivated, graceful, most devout and high- 
minded lady ; whom he had known in old years, first probably 
as Charles Buller's Aunt, and whose esteem was constant for 
him, and always precious to him. She was some ten or twelve 
years older than he ; she survived him some years, but is now 
also gone from us. Of new friends acquired here, besides a 
skilful and ingenious Dr. Symonds, physician as well as friend, 
the principal was Francis Newman, then and still an ardently 
inquiring soul, of fine University and other attainments, of 
sharp-cutting, restlessly advancing intellect, and the mildest 
pious enthusiasm ; whose worth, since better known to all the 
world, Sterling highly estimated ; — and indeed practically testi- 
fied the same ; having by will appointed him, some years hence, 
guardian to his eldest Son ; which pious function Mr. Newman 
now successfully discharges. 

Sterling was not long in certainty as to his abode at Clifton : 
alas, where could he long be so ? Hardly six months were 
gone when his old enemy again overtook him ; again admon- 
ished him how frail his hopes of permanency were. Each 
winter, it turned out, he had to fly ; and after the second 
of these, he quitted the place altogether. Here, meanwhile, in 
a Letter to myself, and in Excerpts from others, are some 
glimpses of his advent and first summer there : 



CLIFTON. 163 

Clifton, June nth, 1839 {To his Mother). — 'As yet I am 
' personally very uncomfortable from the general confusion of 
' this house, which deprives me of my room to sit and read and 
' write in ; all being more or less lumbered by boxes, and in- 
' vaded by servile domesticities aproned, handled, bristled, and 

• of nondescript varieties. We have very fine warm weather, 
' with occasional showers ; and the verdure of the woods and 
' fields is very beautiful. Bristol seems as busy as need be ; 
' and the shops and all kinds of practical conveniences are ex- 
' cellent ; but those of Clifton have the usual sentimental, not 
' to say meretricious fraudulence of commercial establishments 
' in Watering-places. 

' The bag which Hannah forgot reached us safely at Bath 
' on Friday morning ; but I cannot quite unriddle the mystery 
' of the change of padlocks, for I left the right one in care of the 
' Head Steam-engine at Paddington, which seemed a very de- 
' cent person with a good black coat on, and a pen behind its 
' ear. I have been meditating much on the story of Palarea's 

• " box of papers ;" which does not appear to be in my posses- 
' sion, and I have a strong impression that I gave it to young 

• Florez Calderon. I will write to say so to Madam Torrijos 
' speedily.' Palarea, Dr. Palarea, I understand, was 'an old 
guerrilla leader whom they called El Medico.' Of him and of 
the vanished shadows, now gone to Paris, to Madrid, or out of 
the world, let us say nothing ! 

June i$th, 1839 ( To myself). — * We have a room now oc- 
' cupied by Robert Barton,' a brother-in-law ; ' to which 
' Anthony may perhaps succeed ; but which after him, or in lieu 
' of him, would expand itself to receive you. Is there no hope 
' of your coming ? I would undertake to ride with you at all 
' possible paces, and in all existing directions. 

5 As yet my books are lying as ghost books, in a limbo on 
' the banks of a certain Bristolian Styx, humanly speaking, a 
' Canal j but the other apparatus of life is gathered about me, 
' and performs its diurnal functions. The place pleases me 
' better than I expected : a far look-out on all sides, over green 
' country ; a sufficient old City lying in the hollow near ; and 
' civilisation, in no tumultuous state, rather indeed stagnant, 

• visible in the Rows of Houses and Gardens which call them- 
' selves Clifton. I hope soon to take a lease of a house, where 



1 64 JOHN STERLING. 

' I may arrange myself more methodically ; keep myself equably 
« boiling in my own kitchen ; and spread myself over a series of 

• book-shelves.' — ' I have just been interrupted by a visit from 
' Mrs. Strachey ; with whom I dined yesterday. She seems a 

• very good and thoroughly kind-hearted woman ; and it is 

• pleasant to have her for a neighbour.' — 'I have read Emer- 
' son's Pamphlets. I should find it more difficult than ever to 
' write to him.' 

June 2>oth, 1839 (To his Father). — ' Of Books I shall have 
' no lack, though no plethora ; and the Reading-room supplies 

• all one can want in the way of Papers and Reviews. I go 
1 there three or four times a week, and inquire how the human 
' race goes on. I suppose this Turco-Egyptian War will throw 
' several diplomatists into a state of great excitement, and mas- 
' sacre a good many thousands of Africans and Asiatics ? — For 
' the present, it appears, the English Education Question is set- 
' tied. I wish the Government had said that, in their inspection 
' and superintendence, they would look only to secular matters, 
' and leave religious ones to the persons who set-up the schools, 
' whoever these might be. It seems to me monstrous that the 
' State should be prevented taking any efficient measures for 

• teaching Roman Catholic children to read, write and cipher, 
' merely because they believe in the Pope, and the Pope is an 
' impostor, — which I candidly confess he is ! There is no ques- 
' tion which I can so ill endure to see made a party one as that 
' of Education.' — The following is of the same day: 

' To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London. 

' Manor House, Clifton Place, Clifton, 
' 30th June 1839. 

* My dear Carlyle, — I have heard, this morning, from my 
' Father, that you are to set-out on Tuesday for Scotland : so 
' I have determined to fillip away some spurt of ink in your di- 
' rection, which may reach you before you move towards Thule. 

' Writing to you, in fact, is considerably easier than writing 
' about you ; which has been my employment of late, at leisure 

• moments, — that is, moments of leisure from idleness, not work. 
' As you partly guessed, I took in hand a Review of Tevfels- 
1 drockh — for want of a better Heuschrecke to do the work ; 



CLIFTON. 165 

' and when I have been well enough, and alert enough, during 
' the last fortnight, have tried to set down some notions about 
' Tobacco, Radicalism, Christianity, Assafcetida and so forth. 
' But a few abortive pages are all the result as yet. If my spe- 
1 culations should ever see daylight, they may chance to get you 
' into scrapes, but will certainly get me into worse.' * * * 'But 
' one must work ; sic itur ad astra, — and the astra are always 
' there to befriend one, at least as asterisks, filling-up the gaps 
' which yawn in vain for words. 

' Except my unsuccessful efforts to discuss you and your 
' offences, I have done nothing that leaves a trace behind ; — 
' unless the endeavour to teach my little boy the Latin de- 
' clensions shall be found, at some time short of the Last Day, 
' to have done so. I have, — rather I think from dyspepsia than 
' dyspneumony, — been often and for days disabled from doing 
' anything but read. In this way I have gone through a good 
' deal of Strauss's Book ; which is exceedingly clever and clear- 
' headed ; with more of insight, and less of destructive rage than 
' I expected. It will work deep and far, in such a time as ours. 
' When so many minds are distracted about the history, or 
' rather genesis of the Gospel, it is a great thing for partisans 
' on the one side to have, what the other never have wanted, a 
' Book of which they can say, This is our Creed and Code, — or 
' rather Anti-creed and Anti-code. And Strauss seems perfectly 
' secure against the sort of answer to which Voltaire's critical 
' and historical shallowness perpetually exposed him. I mean 
' to read the Book through. It seems admitted that the orthodox 
1 theologians have failed to give any sufficient answer. — I have 
' also looked through Michelet's Luther, with great delight ; and 
' have read the fourth volume of Coleridge's Litei'ary Remains, 
' in .which there are things that would interest you. He has a 

* great hankering after Cromwell, and explicitly defends the 
' execution of Charles. 

' Of Mrs. Strachey we have seen a great deal ; and might 
1 have seen more, had I had time and spirits for it. She is a 

• warm-hearted, enthusiastic creature, whom one cannot but like. 
' She seems always excited by the wish for more excitement than 
' her life affords. And such a person is always in danger of 
1 doing something less wise than his best knowledge and aspira- 
f tions ; because he must do something, and circumstances do 



166 JOHN STERLING. 

' not allow him to do what he desires. Thence, after the first 
' glow of novelty, endless self-tormenting comes from the con- 
' trast between aims and acts. She sets out, with her daughter 
' and two boys, for a Tour in Wales tomorrow morning. Her 
' talk of you is always most affectionate ; and few, I guess, will 
' read Sartor with more interest than she. 

' I am still in a very extempore condition as to house, books, 
' &c. One which I have hired for three years will be given up 
' to me in the middle of August ; and then I may hope to have 
' something like a house, — so far as that is possible for anyone 
' to whom Time itself is often but a worse or a better kind of 
' cave in the desert. We have had rainy and cheerless weather 
' almost since the day of our arrival. But the sun now shines 
' more lovingly, and the skies seem less disdainful of man and 
' his perplexities. The earth is greeri, abundant and beautiful. 
' But human life, so far as I can learn, is mean and meagre 
' enough in its purposes, however striking to the speculative or 
' sentimental bystander. Pray be assured that whatever you 
• may say of the "landlord at Clifton," 1 the more I know of 
' him, the less I shall like him. Well with me if I can put-up 
' with him for the present, and make use of him, till at last I 
' can joyfully turn him off forever ! 

' Love to your Wife and self. My little Charlotte desires me 
' to tell you that she has new shoes for her Doll, which she will 
' show you when you come. — Yours, John Sterling.' 

The visit to Clifton never took effect ; nor to any of Ster- 
ling's subsequent homes ; which now is matter of regret to me. 
Concerning the ' Review of TeufelsdrockK there will be more 
to say anon. As to 'little Charlotte and her Doll,' I remember 
well enough and was more than once reminded, this bright little 
creature, on one of my first visits to Bayswater, had earnestly 
applied to me to put her Doll's shoes on for her ; which feat 
was performed. — The next fragment indicates a household set- 
tled, fallen into wholesome routine again ; and may close the 
series here : 

Jtily i2d, 1839 {To his Mother). — 'A few evenings ago we 
' went to Mr. Griffin's, and met there Dr. Prichard, the author 
' of a well-known Book on the Races of Mankind, to which it 

1 Of Sterling himself, I suppose. 



CLIFTON. 167 

• stands in the same relation among English books as the Racing 
1 Calendar does to those of Horsekind. He is a very intelligent, 
' accomplished person. We had also there the Dean ; a certain 

' Dr. of Corpus College, Cambridge (a booby) ; and a 

' clever fellow, a Mr. Fisher, one of the Tutors of Trinity in my 
' days. We had a very pleasant evening.' — 

At London we were in the habit of expecting Sterling pretty 
often ; his presence, in this house as in others, was looked for, 
once in the month or two, and came always as sunshine in the 
gray weather to me and mine. My daily walks with him had 
long since been cut-short without renewal ; that walk to Eltham 
and Edgeworth's perhaps the last of the kind he and I had : but 
our intimacy, deepening and widening year after year, knew no 
interruption or abatement of increase ; an honest, frank and 
truly human mutual relation, valuable or even invaluable to both 
parties, and a lasting loss, hardly to be replaced in this world, 
to the survivor of the two. 

His visits, which were usually of two or three days, were 
always full of business, rapid in movement as all his life was. 
To me, if possible, he would come in the evening ; a whole cor- 
nucopia of talk and speculation was to be discharged. If the 
evening would not do, and my affairs otherwise permitted, I had 
to mount into cabs with him ; fly far and wide, shuttling athwart 
the big Babel, wherever his calls and pauses had to be. This was 
his way to husband time ! Our talk, in such straitened circum- 
stances, was loud or low as the circumambient groaning rage 
of wheels and sound prescribed, — very loud it had to be in such 
thoroughfares as London Bridge and Cheapside ; but except 
while he was absent, off for minutes into some banker's office, 
lawyer's, stationer's, haberdasher's or what office there might be, 
it never paused. In this way extensive strange dialogues were 
carried on : to me also very strange, — private friendly colloquies, 
on all manner of rich subjects, held thus amid the chaotic roar 
of things. Sterling was full of speculations, observations and 
bright sallies ; vividly awake to what was passing in the world ; 
glanced pertinently with victorious clearness, without spleen, 
though often enough with a dash of mockery, into its Puseyisms, 
Liberalisms, literary Lionisms, or what else the mad hour might 
be producing, — always prompt to recognise what grain of sanity 
might be in the same. He was opulent in talk, and the. rapid 



168 JOHN STERLING. 

movement and vicissitude on such occasions seemed to give him 
new excitement. 

Once, I still remember, — it was some years before, probably 
in May, on his return from Madeira, — he undertook a day's 
riding with me ; once and never again. We coursed extensively 
over the Hampstead and Highgate regions, and the country 
beyond, sauntering or galloping through many leafy lanes and 
pleasant places, in everflowing, everchanging talk ; and returned 
down Regent Street at nightfall : one of the cheerfulest days I 
ever had ; — not to be repeated, said the Fates. Sterling was 
charming on such occasions : at once a child and a gifted man. 
A serious fund of thought he always had, a serious drift you 
never missed in him : nor indeed had he much depth of real 
laughter or sense of the ludicrous, as I have elsewhere said ; 
but what he had was genuine, free and continual : his sparkling 
sallies bubbled-up as from aerated natural fountains ; a mild 
dash of gaiety was native to the man, and had moulded his phy- 
siognomy in a very graceful way. We got once into a cab, about 
Charing Cross ; I know not now whence or well whitherward, 
nor that our haste was at all special ; however, the cabman, 
sensible that his pace was slowish, took to whipping, with a 
steady, passionless, business-like assiduity which, though the 
horse seemed lazy rather than weak, became afflictive ; and I 
urged remonstrance with the savage fellow : " Let him alone," 
answered Sterling ; "he is kindling the enthusiasm of his horse, 
" you perceive ; that is the first thing, then we shall do very 
" well !" — as accordingly we did. 

At Clifton, though his thoughts began to turn more on 
poetic forms of composition, he was diligent in prose elabo- 
rations too, — doing Criticism, for one thing, as we incident- 
ally observed. He wrote there, and sent forth in this autumn 
of 1839, ms most important contribution to John Mill's Re- 
view, the article on Carlyle, which stands also in Mr. Hare's 
collection. 2 What its effect on the public was I knew not, and 
know not ; but remember well, and may here be permitted 
to acknowledge, the deep silent joy, not of a weak or ignoble 
nature, which it gave to myself in my then mood and situation ; 
as it well might. The first generous human recognition, ex- 
2 Hare, i. p. 252. 



CLIFTON. 169 

pressed with heroic emphasis, and clear conviction visible amid 
its fiery exaggeration, that one's poor battle in this world is not 
quite a mad and futile, that it is perhaps a worthy and manful 
one, which will come to something yet : this fact is a memor- 
able one in every history ; and for me Sterling, often enough 
the stiff gainsayer in our private communings, was the doer of 
this. The thought burnt in me like a lamp, for several days ; 
lighting-up into a kind of heroic splendour the sad volcanic 
wrecks, abysses, and convulsions of said poor battle, and 
secretly I was very grateful to my daring friend, and am still, 
and ought to be. What the public might be thinking about 
him and his audacities, and me in consequence, or whether 
it thought at all, I never learned, or much heeded to learn. 

Sterling's gainsaying had given way on many points ; but 
on others it continued stiff as ever, as may be seen in that 
article ; indeed he fought Parthian-like in such cases, holding 
out his last position as doggedly as the first : and to some of 
my notions he seemed to grow in stubbornness of opposition, 
with the growing inevitability, and never would surrender. 
Especially that doctrine of the ' greatness and fruitfulness of 
Silence,' remained afflictive and incomprehensible : "Silence?" 
he would say : "Yes, truly ; if they give you leave to proclaim 
silence by cannon-salvoes ! My Harpocrates-Stentor !" In 
like manner, ' Intellect and Virtue,' how they are proportional, 
or are indeed one gift in us, the same great summary of gifts ; 
and again, 'Might and Right,' the identity of these two, if a 
man will understand this God's-Universe, and that only he 
who conforms to the lav/ of it can in the longrun have any 
' might :' all this, at the first blush, often awakened Sterling's 
musketry upon me, and many volleys I have had to stand, — 
the thing not being decidable by that kind of weapon or strategy. 

In such cases your one method was to leave our friend 
in peace. By small-arms practice no mortal could dislodge 
him : but if you were in the right, the silent hours would work 
continually for you ; and Sterling, more certainly than any 
man, would and must at length swear fealty to the right, and 
passionately adopt it, burying all hostilities under foot. A 
more candid soul, once let the stormful velocities of it expend 
themselves, was nowhere to be met with. A son of light, if I 
have ever seen one ; recognising the truth, if truth there were ; 



17Q JOHN STERLING. 

hurling overboard his vanities, petulances, big and small inter- 
ests, in ready loyalty to truth : very beautiful ; at once a loyal 
child, as I said, and a gifted man ! — Here is a very pertinent 
passage frcm one of his Letters, which, though the name con- 
tinues blank, I will insert : 

October i$th, 1839 {To his Father). — 'As to my "over- 

• estimate of ," your expressions rather puzzle me. I 

' suppose there may be, at the outside, a hundred persons in 
' England whose opinions on such a matter are worth as much 
' as mine. If by "the public" you and my Mother mean the 
' other ninety-nine, I submit. I have no doubt that, on any 
' matter not relating peculiarly to myself, the judgment of the 
' ninety-nine most philosophical heads in the country, if unani- 
' mous, would be right, and mine, if opposed to them, Avrong. 
' But then I am at a loss to make out, How the decision of the 
' very few really competent persons has been ascertained to be 
' thus in contradiction to me ? And on the other hand, I con- 
' ceive myself, from my opportunities, knowledge and attention 
' to the subject, to be alone quite entitled to outvote tens of 
' thousands of gentlemen, however much my superiors as men 

• of business, men of the world, or men of merely dry or merely 
1 frivolous literature. 

' I do not remember ever before to have heard the saying, 
' whether of Talleyrand or of any one else, That all the world 
' is a wiser man than any man in the world. Had it been said 
' even by the Devil, it would nevertheless be false. I have 
' often indeed heard the saying, On petit etre plus fin qu'un 
' autre, mats pas phis fin que tous les autres. But observe 
' that "Jin" means cunning, not wise. The difference between 

• this assertion and the one you refer to is curious and worth 
' examining. It is quite certain, there is always some one man 
' in the world wiser than all the rest ; as Socrates was declared 

• by the oracle to be ; and as, I suppose, Bacon was in his 
' day, and perhaps Burke in his. There is also some one, 
' whose opinion would be probably true, if opposed to that of 
' all around him ; and it is always indubitable that the wise 

• men are the scores, and the unwise the millions. The mil- 
' lions indeed come round, in the course of a generation or 
' two, to the opinions oi the wise ; but by that time a new race 
' of wise men have again shot ahead of their contemporaries : 



CLIFTON. 171 

' so it has always been, and so, in the nature of things, it 
' always must be. But with cunning, the matter is quite dif- 
1 ferent. Cunning is not dishonest wisdom, which would be a 
1 contradiction in terms ; it is dishonest prudence, acuteness in 
' practice, not in thought : and though there must always be 

• some one the most cunning in the world, as well as some one 
' the most wise, these two superlatives will fare very differently 
' in the world. In the case of cunning, the shrewdness of a 

• whole people, of a whole generation, may doubtless be com- 
' bined against that of the one, and so triumph over it ; which 
' was pretty much the case with Napoleon. But although a 
' man of the greatest cunning can hardly conceal his designs 
' and true character from millions of unfriendly eyes, it is quite 
' impossible thus to club the eyes of the mind, and to consti- 
! tute by the union of ten thousand follies an equivalent for a 
' single wisdom. A hundred schoolboys can easily unite and 
« thrash their one master ; but a hundred thousand school- 
' boys would not be nearer than a score to knowing as much 
' Greek among them as Bentley or Scaliger. To all which, I be- 
' lieve, you will assent as readily as I ; — and I have written it 

' down only because I have nothing more important to say.' — ■ 

Besides his prose labours, Sterling had by this time written, 
publishing chiefly in Blackwood, a large assortment of verses, 
Sextons Daughter, Hymns of a Heimit, and I know not what 
other extensive stock of pieces ; concerning which he was now 
somewhat at a loss as to his true course. He could write verses 
with astonishing facility, in any given form of metre ; and to 
various readers they seemed excellent, and high judges had 
freely called them so, but he himself had grave misgivings on 
that latter essential point. In fact here once more was a part- 
ing of the ways, "Write in Poetry; write in Prose?" upon which, 
before all else, it much concerned him to come to a settlement. 

My own advice was, as it had always been, steady against 
Poetry ; and we had colloquies upon it, which must have tried 
his patience, for in him there was a strong leaning the other 
way. But, as I remarked and urged : Had he not already 
gained superior excellence in delivering, by way of speech or 
prose, what thoughts were in him, which is the grand and only 
intrinsic junction of a writing man, call him by what title you 



172 JOHN STERLING. 

will ? Cultivate that superior excellence till it become a per- 
fect and superlative one. Why sing your bits of thoughts, if 
you can contrive to speak them ? By your thought, not by 
your mode of delivering it, you must live or die. — Besides I 
had to observe there was in Sterling intrinsically no depth of 
time j which surely is the real test of a Poet or Singer, as dis- 
tinguished from a Speaker ? In music proper he had not the 
slightest ear ; all music was mere impertinent noise to him, 
nothing in it perceptible but the mere march or time. Nor in 
his way of conception and utterance, in the verses he wrote, 
was there any contradiction, but a constant confirmation to 
me, of that fatal prognostic ; — as indeed the whole man, in ear 
and heart and tongue, is one ; and he whose soul does not sing, 
need not try to do it with his throat. Sterling's verses had a 
monotonous rub-a-dub, instead of tune ; no trace of music deeper 
than that of a well-beaten drum ; to which limited range of ex- 
cellence the substance also corresponded ; being intrinsically 
always a rhymed and slightly rhythmical speech, not a song. 

In short, all seemed to me to say, in his case : "You can 
" speak with supreme excellence; sing with considerable excel- 
" lence you never can. And the Age itself, does it not, beyond 
" most ages, demand and require clear speech ; an Age in- 
" capable of being sung to, in any but a trivial manner, till 
" these convulsive agonies and wild revolutionary overturnings 
" readjust themselves ? Intelligible word of command, not 
" musical psalmody and fiddling, is possible in this fell storm 
" of battle. Beyond all ages, our Age admonishes whatsoever 
" thinking or writing man it has : O, speak to me some wise 
" intelligible speech ; your wise meaning in the shortest and 
" clearest way; behold I am dying for want of wise meaning, 
" and insight into the devouring fact : speak, if you have any 
" wisdom ! As to song so-called, and your fiddling talent, — 
" even if you have one, much more if you have none, — we will 
" talk of that a couple of centuries hence, when things are 
" calmer again. Homer shall be thrice welcome ; but only 
" when Troy is taken : alas, while the siege lasts, and battle's 
" fury rages everywhere, what can I do with the Homer? I 
" want Achi Ileus and Odysseus, and am enraged to see them 
" trying to be Homers !" — 

Sterling, who respected my sincerity, and always was amen- 



CLIFTON. 173 

able enough to counsel, was doubtless much confused by such 
contradictory diagnosis of his case. The question, Poetry or 
Prose ? became more and more pressing, more and more in- 
soluble. He decided, at last, to appeal to the public upon it ; 
— got ready, in the late autumn, a small select Volume of his 
verses ; and was now busy pushing it through the press. Un- 
fortunately, in the mean while, a grave illness, of the old pul- 
monary sort, overtook him, which at one time threatened to be 
dangerous. This is a glance again into his interior household 
in these circumstances : 

December 21st, 1839 {To ^ s Mother). — ! The Tin-box came 
' quite safe, with all its miscellaneous contents. I suppose we 

• are to thank you for the Comic Almanack, which, as usual, is 
' very amusing ; and for the Book on Watt, which disappointed 
' me. The scientific part is no doubt very good, and particu- 
' larly clear and simple ; but there is nothing remarkable in the 
' account of Watt's character ; and it is an absurd piece of 
' French impertinence in Arago to say, that England has not 

• yet learnt to appreciate men like Watt, because he was not 

• made a peer ; which, were our peerage an institution like that 

• of France, would have been very proper. 

' I have now finished correcting the proofs of my little 
1 Volume of Poems. It has been a great plague to me, and one 
' that I would not have incurred, had I expected to be laid-up 
' as I have been ; but the matter was begun before I had any 
' notion of being disabled by such an illness, — the severest I 
' have suffered since I went to the West Indies. The Book 

• will, after all, be a botched business in many respects ; and I 
' much doubt whether it will pay its expenses : but I try to con- 
' sider it as out of my hands, and not to fret myself about it. 
' I shall be very curious to see Carlyle's Tractate on Chartismj 
' which' — But we need not enter upon that. 

Sterling's little Book was printed at his own expense; 3 pub- 
lished by Moxon in the very end of this year. It carries an 
appropriate and pretty Epigraph : 

' Feeling, Thought, and Fancy be 
Gentle sister Graces three : 
If these prove averse to me, 

They will punish, — pardon Ye ! ' 

8 Poems by John Sterling, London (Moxon), 1839, 



174 JOHN STERLING. 

He had dedicated the little Volume to Mr. Hare; — and he sub- 
mitted very patiently to the discouraging neglect with which it 
was received by the world ; for indeed the ' Ye' said nothing 
audible, in the way of pardon or other doom ; so that whether 
the ' sister Graces' were averse or not, remained as doubtful 
as ever. 



CHAPTER II. 

TWO WINTERS. 

As we said above, it had been hoped by Sterling's friends, 
not very confidently by himself, that in the gentler air of Clifton 
his health might so far recover as to enable him to dispense 
with autumnal voyages, and to spend the year all round in a 
house of his own. These hopes, favourable while the warm 
season lasted, broke-down when winter came. In November 
of this same year, while his little Volume was passing through 
the press, bad and worse symptoms, spitting of blood to crown 
the sad list, reappeared ; and Sterling had to equip himself again, 
at this late season, for a new flight to Madeira ; wherein the 
good Calvert, himself suffering, and ready on all grounds for 
such an adventure, offered to accompany him. Sterling went 
by land to Falmouth, meaning there to wait for Calvert, who was 
to come by the Madeira Packet, and there take him on board. 

Calvert and the Packet did arrive, in stormy January weather; 
which continued wildly blowing for weeks; forbidding all egress 
Westward, especially for invalids. These elemental tumults, 
and blustering wars of sea and sky, with nothing but the misty 
solitude of Madeira in the distance, formed a very discouraging 
outlook. In the mean while Falmouth itself had offered so 
many resources, and seemed so tolerable in climate and other- 
wise, while this wintry ocean looked so inhospitable for invalids, 
it was resolved our voyagers should stay where they were till 
spring returned. Which accordingly was done ; with good 
effect for that season, and also with results for the coming sea- 
sons. Here again, from Letters to Knightsbridge, are some 
glimpses of his winter-life : 

Falmouth, February $th, 1840. — ' I have been today to see 
' a new tin-mine, two or three miles off, which is expected to 



TWO WINTERS. 175 

' turn into a copper-mine by and by, so they will have the two 
1 constituents of bronze close together. This, by the way, was 

* the " brass" of Homer and the Ancients generally, who do 
' not seem to have known our brass made of copper and zinc. 
' Achilles in his armour must have looked like a bronze statue. 
' — I took Sheridan's advice, and did not go down the mine.' 

February i$lh. — ' To some iron-works the other day; where 
4 I saw half the beam of a great steam-engine, a piece of iron 
' forty feet long and seven broad, cast in about five minutes. 
' It was a very striking spectacle. I hope to go to Penzance 

* before I leave this country, and will not fail to tell you about 
' it.' — He did make trial of Penzance, among other places, next 
year ; but only of Falmouth this. 

February 2.0th. — ' I am going on asy here, in spite of a great 

* change of weather. The East winds are come at last, bring- 
' ing with them snow, which has been driving about for the 

* last twenty-four hours ; not falling heavily, nor lying long 
' when fallen. Neither is it as yet very cold, but I suppose 
' there will be some six weeks of unpleasant temperature. The 
' marine climate of this part of England will, no doubt, modify 
' and mollify the air into a happier sort of substance than that 

* you breathe in London. 

' The large vessels that had been lying here for weeks, wait- 
' ing for a wind, have now sailed ; two of them for the East 

* Indies, and having three hundred soldiers on board. It is a 
' curious thing that the long-continued westerly winds had so 
' prevented the coasters arriving, that the Town was almost on 
' the point of a famine as to bread. The change has brought 
' in abundance of flour. — The people in general seem extremely 
' comfortable ; their houses are excellent, almost all of stone. 
' Their habits are very little agricultural, but mining and fishing 
' seem to prosper with them. There are hardly any gentry here ; 

* I have not seen more than two gentlemen's carriages in the 

* Town ; indeed I think the nearest one comes from five miles off.' 

' I have been obliged to try to occupy myself with Natural 
' Science, in order to give some interest to my walks; and have 

* begun to feel my way in Geology. I have now learnt to recog- 
' nise three or four of the common kinds of stone about here, 
' when I see them ; but I find it stupid work compared with 
1 Poetry and Philosophy. In the mornings, however, for an hour 



176 JOHN STERLING. 

' or so before I get up, I generally light my candle, and try to 
' write some verses ; and since I have been here, I have put 
' together short poems, almost enough for another small volume. 
' In the evenings I have gone on translating some of Goethe. 
' But six or seven hours spent on my legs, in the open air, do 
' not leave my brain much energy for thinking. Thus my life 
1 is a dull and unprofitable one, but still better than it would 
' have been in Madeira or on board ship. I hear from Susan 
' every day, and write to her by return of post.' 

At Falmouth Sterling had been warmly welcomed by the 
well-known Quaker family of the Foxes, principal people in that 
place, persons of cultivated opulent habits, and joining to the 
fine purities and pieties of their sect a reverence for human in- 
telligence in all kinds ; to whom such a visitor as Sterling was 
naturally a welcome windfall. The family had grave elders, 
bright cheery younger branches, men and women ; truly amiable 
all, after their sort : they made a pleasant image of home for 
Sterling in his winter exile. ' Most worthy, respectable and 
'highly cultivated people, with a great deal of money among 
' them,' writes Sterling in the end of February; 'who make the 
' place pleasant to me. They are connected with all the large 
' Quaker circle, the Gurneys, Frys, &c, and also with Buxton 
» the Abolitionist. It is droll to hear them talking of all the 

• common topics of science, literature and life, and in the midst 
' of it : " Does thou know Wordsworth?" or, " Did thou see the 
' Coronation?" or "Will thou take some refreshment?" They 
' are very kind and pleasant people to know. 

•Calvert,' continues our Diarist, 'is better than he lately 
' was, though he has not been at all laid-up. He shoots little 
' birds, and dissects and stuffs them ; while I carry a hammer, 
' and break flints and slates, to look for diamonds and rubies 

* inside ; and admire my success in the evening, when I empty 
' my greatcoat pocket of its specimens. On the whole, I doubt 
' whether my physical proceedings will set the Thames on fire. 
' Give my love to Anthony's Charlotte ; also remember me 
' affectionately to the Carlyles.' — 

At this time, too, John Mill, probably encouraged by Ster- 
ling, arrived in Falmouth, seeking refuge of climate for a sickly 
younger Brother, to whom also, while he continued there, and 
to his poor patient, the doors and hearts of this kind family 



TWO WINTERS. 177 

were thrown wide open. Falmouth, during these winter weeks, 
especially while Mill continued, was an unexpectedly engaging 
place to Sterling ; and he left it in spring, for Clifton, with a 
very kindly image of it in his thoughts. So ended, better than 
it might have done, his first year's flight from the Clifton winter. 

In April 1 840 he was at his own hearth again ; cheerily 
pursuing his old labours, — struggling to redeem, as he did with 
a gallant constancy, the available months and days, out of the 
wreck of so many that were unavailable, for the business allotted 
him in this world. His swift, decisive energy of character ; the 
valiant rally he made again and ever again, starting up fresh 
from amid the wounded, and cheerily storming-in anew, was 
admirable, and showed a noble fund of natural health amid such 
an element of disease. Somehow one could never rightly fancy 
that he was diseased ; that those fatal ever-recurring downbreaks 
were not almost rather the penalties paid for exuberance of 
health, and of faculty for living and working ; criminal forfeit- 
ures, incurred by excess of self-exertion and such irrepressible 
over-rapidity of movement : and the vague hope was habitual 
with us, that increase of years, as it deadened this over-energy, 
would first make the man secure of life, and a sober prosperous 
worker among his fellows. It was always as if with a kind of 
blame that one heard of his being ill again ! Poor Sterling ; — 
no man knows another's burden : these things were not, and 
were not to be, in the way we had fancied them ! 

Summer went along in its usual quiet tenor at Clifton ; health 
good, as usual while the warm weather lasted, and activity 
abundant ; the scene as still as the busiest could wish. ' You 
' metropolitan signors,' writes Sterling to his Father, 'cannot 
' conceive the dulness and scantiness of our provincial chronicle.' 
Here is a little excursion to the seaside ; the lady of the family 
being again, — for good reasons, — in a weakly state : 

* To Edward Sterling, Esq., Knightsbridge, London. 

' Portshead, Bristol, 1st Sept. 1840. 

•My dear Father, — This place is a southern headland at 

' the mouth of the Avon. Susan, and the Children too, were 

' all suffering from languor ; and as she is quite unfit to travel 

* in a carriage, we were obliged to move, if at all, to some place 



178 JOHN STERLING. 

' accessible by water ; and this is the nearest where we could 

• get the fresher air of the Bristol Channel. We sent to take a 

• house, for a week ; and came down here in a steamer yester- 
1 day morning. It seems likely to do every one good. We have 
' a comfortable house, with eight rather small bedrooms, for 
' which we pay four guineas and a half for the week. We have 
' brought three of our own maids, and leave one to take care of 
1 the house at Clifton. 

* A week ago my horse fell with me, but did not hurt seri- 
' ously either himself or me : it was, however, rather hard that, 
' as there were six legs to be damaged, the one that did scratch 
1 itself should belong to the part of the machine possessing only 
' two, instead of the quadrupedal portion. I grazed about the 
' size of a halfpenny on my left knee ; and for a couple of days 

• walked about as if nothing had happened. I found, however, 

• that the skin was not returning correctly ; and so sent for a 
' doctor : he treated the thing as quite insignificant, but said I 
' must keep my leg quiet for a few days. It is still not quite 
1 healed ; and I lie all day on a sofa, much to my discomposure ; 
' but the thing is now rapidly disappearing ; and I hope, in a 
' day or two more, I shall be free again. I find I can do no 
' work, while thus crippled in my leg. The man in Horace who 
' made verses stans ftede in nno had the advantage of me. 

' The Great Western came-in last night about eleven, and 
' has just been making a flourish past our windows ; looking 
' very grand, with four streamers of bunting, and one of smoke. 
' Of course I do not yet know whether I have Letters by her, 
' as if so they will have gone to Clifton first. This place is quiet, 
' green and pleasant ; and will suit us very well, if we have good 
' weather, of which there seems every appearance. 

' Milnes spent last Sunday with me at Clifton ; and was very 
' amusing and cordial. It is impossible for those who know him 

• well not to like him. — I send this to Knightsbridge, not know- 
' ing where else to hit you. Love to my Mother. — Your affec- 
' tionate, John Sterling.' 

The expected ' Letters by the Great Western' are from An- 
thony, now in Canada, doing military duties there. The ' Milnes' 
is our excellent Richard, whom all men know, and truly whom 
none can know well without even doing as Sterling says. — In 



TWO WINTERS. 179 

a week the family had returned to Clifton ; and Sterling was at 
his poetisings and equitations again. His grand business was 
now Poetry ; all effort, outlook and aim exclusively directed 
thither, this good while. 

Of the published Volume Moxon gave the worst tidings ; no 
man had hailed it with welcome ; unsold it lay, under the leaden 
seal of general neglect • the public when asked what it thought, 
had answered hitherto by a lazy stare. It shall answer other- 
wise, thought Sterling ; by no means taking that as the final 
response. It was in this same September that he announced to 
me and other friends, under seal of secrecy as usual, the com- 
pletion, or complete first-draught of "a new Poem reaching to 
two thousand verses." By working 'three hours every morning' 
he had brought it so far. This Piece, entitled The Election, of 
which in due time we obtained perusal, and had to give some 
judgment, proved to be in a new vein, — what might be called 
the mock-heroic, or sentimental Hudibrastic, reminding one a 
little, too, of Wieland's Oberonj — it had touches of true drollery 
combined not ill with grave clear insight ; showed spirit every- 
where, and a plainly improved power of execution. Our stingy 
verdict was to the effect, " Better, but still not good enough : — 
" why follow that sad 'metrical' course, climbing the loose sand- 
" hills, when you have a firm path along the plain ?" To Ster- 
ling himself it remained dubious whether so slight a strain, new 
though it were, would suffice to awaken the sleeping public ; and 
the Piece was thrown away and taken up again, at intervals ; 
and the question, Publish or not publish ? lay many months 
undecided. 

Meanwhile his own feeling was now set more and more to- 
wards Poetry ; and in spite of symptoms and dissuasions, and 
perverse prognostics of outward wind and weather, he was rally- 
ing all his force for a downright struggle with it ; resolute to 
see which was the stronger. It must be owned, he takes his 
failures in the kindliest manner ; and goes along, bating no 
jot of heart or hope. Perhaps I should have more admired this 
than I did ! My dissuasions, in that case, might have been 
fainter. But then my sincerity, which was all the use of my 
poor counsel in assent or dissent, would have been less. He 
was now furthermore busy with a Tragedy of Strafford, the theme 
of many failures in Tragedy"; planning it industriously in his 



180 JOHN STERLING. 

head ; eagerly reading in Whitlocke, Rushworth and the Puritan 
Books, to attain a vesture and local habitation for it. Faithful 
assiduous studies I do believe ; — of which, knowing my stubborn 
realism, and savage humour towards singing by the Thespian or 
other methods, he told me little, during his visits that summer. 

The advance of the dark weather sent him adrift again ; to 
Torquay, for this winter : there, in his old Falmouth climate, 
he hoped to do well ; — and did, so far as welldoing was readily 
possible, in that sad wandering way of life. However, be where 
he may, he tries to work ' two or three hours in the morning,' 
were it even 'with a lamp,' in bed, before the fires are lit; and 
so makes something of it. From abundant Letters of his now 
before me, I glean these two or three small glimpses ; sufficient 
for our purpose at present. The general date is ' Tor, near 
Torquay :' 

Tor, November 30th, 1 840 (To Mrs. Charles Fox, Falmouth). 
— • I reached this place on Thursday ; having, after much hesi- 
' tation, resolved to come here, at least for the next three weeks, 
' — with some obscure purpose of embarking at the New Year, 
' from Falmouth for Malta, and so reaching Naples, which I 
' have not seen. There was also a doubt whether I should not, 
' after Christmas, bring my family here for the first four months 
1 of the year. All this, however, is still doubtful. But for certain 
' inhabitants of Falmouth and its neighbourhood, this place 
' would be far more attractive than it. But I have here also 
1 friends, whose kindness, like much that I met with last winter, 
' perpetually makes me wonder at the stock of benignity in 
' human nature. A brother of my friend Julius Hare, Marcus 
' by name, a Naval man, and though not a man of letters, full 
' of sense and knowledge, lives here in a beautiful place, with a 
' most agreeable and excellent wife, a daughter of Lord Stanley 
' of Alderley. I had hardly seen them before ; but they are fra- 
' ternising with me, in a much belter than the Jacobin fashion ; 
' and one only feels ashamed at the enormity of some people's 
' good-nature. I am in a little rural sort of lodging ; and as 
' comfortable as a solitary oyster can expect to be.' — 

December ^tk (To C. Barton). — 'This place is extremely 
' small, much more so than Falmouth even ; but pretty, cheerful, 
' and very mild in climate. There are a great many villas in 



TWO WINTERS. 181 

and about the little Town, having three or four reception- 
rooms, eight or ten bedrooms ; and costing about fifteen hun- 
dred or two thousand pounds each, and occupied by persons 
spending a thousand or more pounds a-year. If the Country 
would acknowledge my merits by the gift of one of these, I 
could prevail on myself to come and live here ; which would 
be the best move for my health I could make in England ; but, 
in the absence of any such expression of public feeling, it would 
come rather dear.' — 

December i2d ' {To Mrs. Fox again). — ' By the way, did you 
ever read a Novel ? If you ever mean to do so hereafter, let 
it be Miss Martineau's Deerbrook. It is really very striking ; 
and parts of it are very true and very beautiful. It is not so 
true, or so thoroughly clear and harmonious, among delinea- 
tions of English middle-class gentility, as Miss Austin's books, 
especially as Pride a?td Prejudice, which I think exquisite ; but 
it is worth reading. The Hour and the Man is eloquent, but 
an absurd exaggeration. — I hold out so valorously against this 
Scandinavian weather, that I deserve to be ranked with Odin 
and Thor, and fancy I may go to live at Clifton or Drontheim. 
Have you had the same icy desolation as prevails here ?' 

December 2%th {To W. Coningham, Esq.). — 'Looking back 

to him' (a deceased Uncle, father of his correspondent), ' as 

I now very often do, I feel strongly, what the loss of other 

friends has also impressed on me, how much Death deepens 

our affection ; and sharpens our regret for whatever has been 

even slightly amiss in our conduct towards those who are 

gone. What trifles then swell into painful importance ; how 

we believe that, could the past be recalled, life would present 

no worthier, happier task, than that of so bearing ourselves 

towards those we love, that we might ever after find nothing 

but melodious tranquillity breathing about their graves ! Yet, 

too often, I feel the difficulty of always practising such mild 

wisdom towards those who are still left me. — You will wonder 

; less at my rambling off in this way, when I tell you that my 

: little lodging is close to a picturesque old Church and Church- 

; yard, where, every day, I brush past a tombstone, recording 

1 that an Italian, of Manferrato, has buried there a girl of six- 

' teen, his only daughter : " £,' unica speranza di mia vita." — 

1 No doubt, as you say, our Mechanical Age is necessary as a 



1 82 JOHN STERLING. 

• passage to something better ; but, at least, do not let us go 
' back.' — 

At the New-year time, feeling unusually well, he returns to 
Clifton. His plans, of course, were ever fluctuating ; his move- 
ments were swift and uncertain. Alas, his whole life, especially 
his winter-life, had to be built as if on wavering drift-sand; no- 
thing certain in it, except if possible the ' two or three hours of 
work' snatched from the general whirlpool of the dubious four- 
and-twenty ! 

Clifton, January loth, 1841 {To Dr. Carlyle). — 'I stood 
' the sharp frost at Torquay with such entire impunity, that at 
' last I took courage, and resolved to return home. I have been 
' here a week, in extreme cold ; and have suffered not at all ; 
' so that I hope, with care I may prosper in spite of medical 
' prognostics, — if you permit such profane language. I am even 
' able to work a good deal ; and write for some hours every 
' morning, by dint of getting up early, which an Arnott-stove 
' in my study enables me to do.' — But at Clifton he cannot 
continue. Again, before long, the rude weather has driven him 
Southward ; the spring finds him in his former haunts ; doubt- 
ful as ever what to decide upon for the future ; but tending 
evidently towards a new change of residence for household and 
self: 

Penzance, April i^th, 1841 {To W. Coningham, Esq.). — 
' My little Boy and I have been wandering about between Tor- 
' quay and this place ; and latterly have had my Father for a 
' few days with us, — he left us yesterday. In all probability I 
' shall endeavour to settle either at Torquay, at Falmouth, or 
' here ; as it is pretty clear that I cannot stand the sharp air 
' of Clifton, and still less the London east winds. Penzance is, 
' on the whole, a pleasant-looking, cheerful place ; with a de- 

• lightful mildness of air, and a great appearance of comfort 
' among the people : the view of Mount's Bay is certainly a 
' very noble one. Torquay would suit the health of my Wife 
' and Children better ; or else I should be glad to live here 

• always, London and its neighbourhood being impracticable.' 
— Such was his second wandering winter ; enough to render 
the prospect of a third at Clifton very uninviting. 

With the Falmouth friends, young and old, his intercourse 



FALMOUTH : POEMS. 183 

had meanwhile continued cordial and frequent. The omens 
were pointing towards that region as his next place of abode. 
Accordingly, in few weeks hence, in the June of this Summer 
1 84 1, his dubitations and inquirings are again ended for a 
time ; he has fixed upon a house in Falmouth, and removed 
thither ; bidding Clifton, and the regretful Clifton friends, a 
kind farewell. This was thejifth change of place for his family 
since Bayswater ; the fifth, and to one chief member of it the 
last. Mrs. Sterling had brought him a new child in October 
last ; and went hopefully to Falmouth, dreading other than what 
befell there. 



CHAPTER III. 

FALMOUTH : POEMS. 

At Falmouth, as usual, he was soon at home in his new en- 
vironment ; resumed his labours ; had his new small circle of 
acquaintance, the ready and constant centre of which was the 
Fox family, with whom he lived on an altogether intimate, 
honoured and beloved footing ; realising his best anticipations 
in that respect, which doubtless were among his first induce- 
ments to settle in this new place. Open cheery heights, rather 
bare of wood ; fresh south-western breezes ; a brisk laugking 
sea, swept by industrious sails, and the nets of a most stalwart, 
wholesome, frank and interesting population : the clean little 
fishing, trading and packet Town ; hanging on its slope towards 
the Eastern sun, close on the waters of its basin and intricate 
bay, — with the miniature Pendennis Castle seaward on the right, 
the miniature St. Mawes landward to left, and the mining world 
and the farming world open boundlessly to the rear : — all this 
made a pleasant outlook and environment. And in all this, as 
in the other new elements of his position, Sterling, open beyond 
most men to the worth of things about him, took his frank share. 
From the first, he had liked the general aspect of the popula- 
tion, and their healthy, lively ways ; not to speak of the special 
friendships he had formed there, which shed a charm over them 
all. ' Men of strong character, clear heads and genuine good- 
1 ness,' writes he, ' are by no means wanting.' And long after : 
' The common people here dress better than in most parts of 



184 JOHN STERLING. 

* England ; and on Sundays, if the weather be at all fine, their 
' appearance is very pleasant. One sees them all round the 
1 Town, especially towards Pendennis Castle, streaming in a 
' succession of little groups, and seeming for the most part really 

* and quietly happy.' On the whole he reckoned himself lucky ; 
and, so far as locality went, found this a handsome shelter for 
the next two years of his life. Two years, and not without an 
interruption ; that was all. Here we have no continuing city ; 
he less than any of us ! One other flight for shelter ; and then 
it is ended, and he has found an inexpugnable refuge. Let us 
trace his remote footsteps, as we have opportunity : 

Falmouth, June 28th, 1841 {To Dr. Symonds, Clifton). — 
' Newman writes to me that he is gone to the Rhine. I wish I 
' were ! And yet the only "wish" at the bottom of my heart, 
' is to be able to work vigorously in my own way anywhere, 

* were it in some Circle of Dante's Inferno. This, however, is 
' the secret of my soul, which I disclose only to a few.' 

Falmouth, Jitly 6th, 1841 (To his Mother). — 'I have at 
' last my own study made comfortable ; the carpet being now 
' laid down, and most of my appurtenances in tolerable order. 
' By and by I shall, unless stopped by illness, get myself to- 

* gether, and begin living an orderly life and doing my daily 
' task. I have swung a cot in my dressing-room ; partly as a 
' convenience for myself, partly as a sort of memorial of my 
' poor Uncle, in whose cot in his dressing-room at Lisworney 
' I remember to have slept when a child. I have put a good 
' large bookcase in my drawing-room, and all the rest of my 
' books fit very well into the study.' 

Same day (To myself). — ' No books have come in my way 
' but Emerson's, which I value full as much as you, though as 
' yet I have read only some corners of it. We have had an 

* Election here, of the usual stamp; to me a droll "realised 
' Ideal," after my late metrical adventures in that line. But 
' the oddest sign of the Times I know, is a cheap Translation 
' of Strauss's Leben Jesu, now publishing in numbers, and said 
' to be circulating far and wide. What does, — or rather, what 
' does not, — this portend ?' — 

With the Poem called The Electio?i, here alluded to, which 
had been more than once revised and reconsidered, he was still 



FALMOUTH : POEMS. 185 

under some hesitations ; but at last had wellnigh resolved, as 
from the first it was clear he would do, on publishing it. This 
occupied some occasional portion of his thoughts. But his 
grand private affair, I believe, was now Strafford j to which, 
or to its adjuncts, all working hours were devoted. Sterling's 
notions of Tragedy are high enough. This is what he writes 
once, in reference to his own task in these weeks: 'Few, I 
' fancy, know how much harder it is to write a Tragedy than 
' to realise or be one. Every man has in his heart and lot, if 
' he pleases, and too many whether they please or no, all the 
1 woes of CEdipus and Antigone. But it takes the One, the 
' Sophocles of a thousand years, to utter these in the full depth 
1 and harmony of creative song. Curious, by the way, how that 
' Dramatic Form of the old Greek, with only some superficial 
' changes, remains a law not only for the stage, but for the 
' thoughts of all Poets ; and what a charm it has even for the 
1 reader who never saw a theatre. The Greek Plays and Shak- 
' speare have interested a hundred as books, for one who has 
' seen their writings acted. How lightly does the mere clown, 
' the idle school-girl, build a private theatre in the fancy, and 
» laugh or weep with Falstaff and Macbeth : with how entire 

* an oblivion of the artificial nature of the whole contrivance, 

* which thus compels them to be their own architects, machinists, 
' scene-painters, and actors ! In fact, the artifice succeeds, — 
' becomes grounded in the substance of the soul : and every 
1 one loves to feel how he is thus brought face to face with the 
1 brave, the fair, the woful and the great of all past ages ; looks 
1 into their eyes, and feels the beatings of their hearts ; and 
' reads, over the shoulder, the secret written tablets of the 
' busiest and the largest brains ; while the Juggler, by whose 

* cunning the whole strange beautiful absurdity is set in motion, 
' keeps himself hidden ; sings loud with a mouth unmoving as 

* that of a statue, and makes the human race cheat itself unani- 
1 mously and delightfully by the illusion that he preordains ; 
' while as an obscure Fate, he sits invisible, and hardly lets his 
' being be divined by those who cannot flee him. The Lyric 
' Art is childish, and the Epic barbarous, compared to this. 
' But of the true and perfect Drama it may be said, as of even 
' higher mysteries, Who is sufficient for these things ?' — On this 
Tragedy of Strafford, writing it and again writing it, studying 



1 86 JOHN STERLING. 

for it, and bending himself with his whole strength to do his 
best on it, he expended many strenuous months, — ' above a 
year of his life,' he computes, in all. 

For the rest, what Falmouth has to give him he is willing 
to take, and mingles freely in it. In Hare's Collection there is 
given a Lecture which he read in Autumn 1841 (Mr. Hare says 
' 1 842/ by mistake), to a certain Public Institution in the place, 
—of which more anon; — apiece interesting in this, if not much 
in any other respect. Doubtless his friends the Foxes were at 
the heart of that lecturing enterprise, and had urged and soli- 
cited him. Something like proficiency in certain branches of 
science, as I have understood, characterised one or more of this 
estimable family ; love of knowledge, taste for art, wish to con- 
sort with wisdom and wise men, were the tendencies of all ; to 
opulent means superadd the Quaker beneficence, Quaker purity 
and reverence, there is a circle in which wise men also may 
love to be. Sterling made acquaintance here with whatever of 
notable in worthy persons or things might be afoot in those 
parts ; and was led thereby, now and then, into pleasant re- 
unions, in new circles of activity, which might otherwise have 
continued foreign to him. The good Calvert, too, was nowhere; 
and intended to remain ; — which he mostly did henceforth, 
lodging in Sterling's neighbourhood, so long as lodging in this 
world was permitted him. Still good and clear and cheerful ; 
still a lively comrade, within doors or without, — a diligent rider 
always, — though now wearing visibly weaker, and less able to 
exert himself. 

Among those accidental Falmouth reunions, perhaps the 
notablest for Sterling occurred in this his first season. There 
is in Falmouth an Association called the Cornwall Polytechnic 
Society, established, about twenty years ago, and supported by 
the wealthy people of the Town and neighbourhood, for the en- 
couragement of the arts in that region ; it has its Library, its 
Museum, some kind of Annual Exhibition withal; gives prizes, 
publishes reports : the main patrons, I believe, are Sir Charles 
Lemon, a well-known country gentleman of those parts, and the 
Messrs. Fox. To this, so far as he liked to go in it, Sterling 
was sure to be introduced and solicited. The Polytechnic meet- 
ing of 1 84 1 was unusually distinguished; and Sterling's part in 
it formed one of the pleasant occurrences for him in Falmouth. 



FALMOUTH : POEMS. 187 

It was here that, among other profitable as well as pleasant 
things, he made acquaintance with Professor Owen (an event' 
of which I too had my benefit in due time, and still have) : the 
bigger assemblage, called British Association, which met at 
Plymouth this year, having now just finished its affairs there, 
Owen and other distinguished persons had taken Falmouth in 
their route from it. Sterling's account of this Polytechnic gala 
still remains, — in three Letters to his Father, which, omitting 
the extraneous portions, I will give in one, — as a piece worth 
reading among those still-life pictures : 

1 To Edward Sterling, Esq., Knightsbridge, London. 

' Falmouth, 10th August 1841. 

4 My dear Father, — I was not well for a day or two after 
' you went ; and since, I have been busy about an annual show 
' of the Polytechnic Society here, in which my friends take much 
4 interest, and for which I have been acting as one of the judges 
4 in the department of the Fine Arts, and have written a little 
4 Report for them. As I have not said that Falmouth is as 
4 eminent as Athens or Florence, perhaps the Committee will 
4 not adopt my statement. But if they do, it will be of some 
4 use ; for I have hinted, as delicately as possible, that people 
4 should not paint historical pictures before they have the power 
4 of drawing a decent outline of a pig or a cabbage. I saw Sir 
4 Charles Lemon yesterday, who was kind as well as civil in 
4 his manner; and promises to be a pleasant neighbour. There 
4 are several of the British Association heroes here ; but not 
4 Whewell, or any one whom I know.' 

August ijth. — 'At the Polytechnic Meeting here we had 
4 several very eminent men ; among others, Professor Owen, 
' said to be the first of comparative anatomists, and Conybeare 
4 the geologist. Both of these gave evening Lectures; and after 
4 Conybeare's, at which I happened to be present, I said I 
4 would, if they chose, make some remarks on the Busts which 
4 happened to be standing there, intended for prizes in the de- 
4 partment of the Fine Arts. They agreed gladly. The heads 
4 were Homer, Pericles, Augustus, Dante and Michael Angelo. 
4 I got into the boxlike platform, with these on a shelf before 
4 me ; and began a talk which must have lasted some three 
4 quarters of an hour ; describing partly the characters and cir- 



1 88 JOHN STERLING. 

' cumstances of the men, illustrated by anecdotes and compared 
' with their physiognomies, and partly the several styles of sculp- 
1 ture exhibited in the Casts, referring these to what I consi- 
' dered the true principles of the Art. The subject was one that 

• interests me, and I got on in famous style ; and had both pit 
' and galleries all applauding, in a way that had had no prece- 
' dent during any other part of the meeting. Conybeare paid 
' me high compliments ; Owen looked much pleased, — an hon- 
' our well purchased by a year's hard work ; — and everybody, 
' in short, seemed delighted. Susan was not there, and I had 

• nothing to make me nervous ; so that I worked away freely, 

• and got vigorously over the ground. After so many years' 
' disuse of rhetoric, it was a pleasant surprise to myself to find 
' that I could still handle the old weapons without awkwardness. 
1 More by good luck than good guidance, it has done my health 
' no harm. I have been at Sir Charles Lemon's, though only 
' to pay a morning visit, having declined to stay there or dine, 
' the hours not suiting me. They were very civil. The person 
' I saw most of was his sister, Lady Dunstanville ; a pleasant, 
' well-informed and well-bred woman. He seems a most ami- 

• able, kindly man, of fair good sense and cultivated tastes. — 
' I had a letter today from my Mother' in Scotland ; ' who says 
' she sent you one which you were to forward me ; which I hope 
' soon to have.' 

August 2Q.t/i. — ' I returned yesterday from Carclew, Sir C. 
' Lemon's fine place about five miles off; where I had been 
' staying a couple of days, with apparently the heartiest welcome. 
' Susan was asked ; but wanting a Governess, could not leave 
1 home. 

' Sir Charles is a widower (his Wife was sister to Lord II- 
1 Chester) without children ; but had a niece staying with him, 
1 and his sister Lady Dunstanville, a pleasant and very civil 
1 woman. There were also Mr. Bunbury, eldest son of Sir Henry 
' Bunbury, a man of much cultivation and strong talents ; Mr. 
' Fox Talbot, son, I think, of another Ilchester lady, and bro- 

• ther of the Talbot of Wales, but himself a man of large fortune, 

• and known for photogenic and other scientific plans of extract- 
' ing sunbeams from cucumbers. He also is a man of known 
' ability, but chiefly employed in that peculiar department. Item 

• Professors Lloyd and Owen : the former, of Dublin, son of the 



FALMOUTH : POEMS. 189 

• late Pr6vost, I had seen before and knew ; a great mathema- 
' tician and optician, and a discoverer in those matters ; with 
' a clever little Wife, who has a great deal of knowledge, quite 
' free from pretension. Owen is a first-rate comparative anato- 
' mist, they say the greatest since Cuvier ; lives in London, and 
' lectures there. On the whole, he interested me more than any 
' of them, — by an apparent force and downrightness cf mind, 

• combined with much simplicity and frankness. 

' Nothing could be pleasanter and easier than the habits of 
' life, with what to me was a very unusual degree of luxury, 
•' though probably nothing but what is common among people of 
' large fortune. The library and pictures are nothing extraordin- 

• ary. The general tone of good nature, good sense and quiet 
' freedom, was what struck me most ; and I think besides this 
' there was a disposition to be cordially courteous towards me.' 

' I took Edward a ride of two hours yesterday on Calvert's 
' pony, and he is improving fast in horsemanship. The school 
' appears to answer very well. We shall have the Governess in 
' a day or two, which will be a great satisfaction. Will you send 
' my Mother this scribble with my love ; and believe me, — Your 

• affectionate son, John Sterling.' 

One other little event dwells with me, out of those Falmouth 
times, exact date now forgotten ; a pleasant little matter, in 
which Sterling, and principally the Misses Fox, bright cheery 
young creatures, were concerned ; which, for the sake of its 
human interest, is worth mention. In a certain Cornish mine, 
said the Newspapers duly specifying it, two miners deep down 
in the shaft were engaged putting in a shot for blasting : they 
had completed their affair, and were about? to give the signal 
for being hoisted up, — one at a time was all their coadjutor at 
the top could manage, and the second was to kindle the match, 
and then mount with all speed. Now it chanced while they 
were both still below, one of them thought the match too long ; 
tried to break it shorter, took a couple of stones, a fiat and a 
sharp, to cut it shorter ; did cut it of the due length, but, hor- 
rible to relate, kindled it at the same time, and both were still 
below ! Both shouted vehemently to the coadjutor at the wind- 
lass, both sprang at the basket; the windlass man could not 
move it with them both. Here was a moment for poor miner 



i 9 o JOHN STERLING. 

Jack and miner Will ! Instant horrible death hangs over both, 
— when Will generously resigns himself : " Go aloft, Jack," and 
sits down ; "away ; in one minute I shall be in Heaven !" Jack 
bounds aloft, the explosion instantly follows, bruises his face as 
he looks over ; he is safe above ground : and poor Will ? De- 
scending eagerly they find Will too, as if by miracle, buried 
under rocks which had arched themselves over him, and little 
injured: he too is brought up safe, and all ends joyfully, say 
the Newspapers. 

Such a piece of manful promptitude, and salutary human 
heroism, Avas worth investigating. It was investigated ; found 
to be accurate to the letter, — with this addition and explanation, 
that Will, an honest, ignorant good man, entirely given-up to 
Methodism, had been perfect in the "faith of assurance," cer- 
tain that he should get to Heaven if he died, certain that Jack 
would not, which had been the ground of his decision in that 
great moment ; — for the rest," that he much wished to learn 
reading and writing, and find some way of life above ground 
instead of below. By aid of the Misses Fox and the rest of that 
family, a subscription (modest Anti- Hudson testimonial) was 
raised to this Methodist hero : he emerged into daylight with 
fifty pounds in his pocket ; did strenuously try, for certain 
months, to learn reading and writing ; found he could not learn 
those arts or either of them ; took his money and bought cows 
with it, wedding at the same time some religious likely milkmaid ; 
and is, last time I heard of him, a prosperous modest dairyman, 
thankful for the upper light and safety from the wrath to come. 
Sterling had some hand in this affair : but, as I said, it was the 
two young ladies of the family that mainly did it. 

In the end of 1*841, after many hesitations and revisals, The 
Election came out ; a tiny Duodecimo without name attached j 1 
again inquiring of the public what its suffrage was ; again to 
little purpose. My vote had never been loud for this step, but 
neither was it quite adverse ; and now, in reading the poor little 
Poem over again, after ten years' space, I find it, with a touch- 
ing mixture of pleasure and repentance, considerably better than 
it then seemed to me. My encouragement, if not to print this 
poem, yet to proceed with Poetry, since there was such a reso- 
lution for it, might have been a little more decided ! 

1 The Election: a Poem, in Seven Books. London, Murray, 1841. 



FALMOUTH: POEMS. 191 

This is a small Piece, but aims at containing great things ; 
a multum inparvo after its sort ; and is executed here and there 
with undeniable success. The style is free and flowing, the rhyme 
dances along with a certain joyful triumph ; everything of due 
brevity withal. That mixture of mockery on the surface, which 
finely relieves the real earnestness within, and flavours even what 
is not very earnest and might even be insipid otherwise, is not 
ill managed : an amalgam difficult to effect well in writing ; nay, 
impossible in writing, — unless it stand already done and effected, 
as a general fact, in the writer's mind and character ; which will 
betoken a certain ripeness there. 

As I said, great things are intended in this little Piece ; the 
motto itself foreshadowing them : 

'Fluellen. Ancient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning. 
Pistol. Why, then, rejoice therefor.' 

A stupid commonplace English Borough has lost its Member 
suddenly, by apoplexy or otherwise ; resolves, in the usual ex- 
plosive temper of mind, to replace him by one of two others ; 
whereupon strange stirring-up of rival-attorney and other human 
interests and catastrophes. ' Frank Vane' (Sterling himself), 
and ' Peter Mogg,' the pattern English blockhead of elections : 
these are the candidates. There are, of course, fierce rival at- 
torneys ; electors of all creeds and complexions to be canvassed : 
a poor stupid Borough thrown all into red or white heat ; into 
blazing paroxysms of activity and enthusiasm, which render the 
inner life of it (and of England and the world through it) lumin- 
ously transparent, so to speak; — of which opportunity our friend 
and his * Muse' take dexterous advantage, to delineate the 
same. His pictures are uncommonly good ; brief, joyous, some- 
times conclusively true : in rigorously compressed shape ; all is 
merry freshness and exuberance : we have leafy summer em- 
bowering red bricks and small human interests, presented as in 
glowing miniature ; a mock-heroic action fitly interwoven ; — and 
many a clear glance is carelessly given into the deepest things 
by the way. Very happy also is the little love-episode ; and the 
absorption of all the interest into that, on the part of Frank 
Vane and of us, when once this gallant Frank, — having fairly 
from his barrelhead stated his own (and John Sterling's) views 
on the aspects of the world, and of course having quite broken- 



192 



JOHN STERLING. 



down with his attorney and his public, — handsomely, by stra- 
tagem, gallops off with the fair Anne ; and leaves free field to 
Mogg, free field to the Hippopotamus if it like. This portrait 
of Mogg may be considered to have merit : 

' Though short of days, how large the mind of man ; 
A godlike force enclosed within a span ! 
To climb the skies we spurn our nature's clog, 
And toil as Titans to elect a Mogg. 

' And who was Mogg? O Muse ! the man declare, 
How excellent his worth, his parts how rare. 
A younger son, he learnt in Oxford's halls 
The spheral harmonies of billiard-balls, 
Drank, hunted, drove, and hid from Virtue's frown 
His venial follies in Decorum's gown. 
Too wise to doubt on insufficient cause, 
He signed old Cranmer's lore without a pause ; 
And knew that logic's cunning rules are taught 
To guard our creed, and not invigorate thought, — 
As those bronze steeds at Venice, kept for pride, 
Adorn a Town where not one man can ride. 

' From Isis sent with all her loud acclaims, 
The Laws he studied on the banks of Thames. 
Park, race and play, in his capacious plan, 
Combined with Coke to form the finished man, 
Until the wig's ambrosial influence shed 
Its last full glories on the lawyer's head. 

' But vain are mortal schemes. The eldest son 
At Harrier Hall had scarce his stud begun, 
When Death's pale courser took the Squire away 
To lands where never dawns a hunting-day : 
And so, while Thomas vanished 'mid the fog, 
Bright rose the morning-star of Peter Mogg.' 2 

And this little picture, in a quite opposite way : 

' Now, in her chamber all alone, the maid 
Her polished limbs and shoulders disarrayed ; 
One little taper gave the only light, 
One little mirror caught so dear a sight ; 
'Mid hangings dusk and shadows wide she stood, 
I /ike some pale Nymph in dark-leafed solitude 
Of rocks and gloomy waters all alone, 
Where sunshine scarcely breaks on stump or stone 



PP. 7- 



FALMOUTH : POEMS. 193 

To scare the dreamy vision. Thus did she, 
A star in deepest night, intent but free, 
Gleam through the eyeless darkness, heeding not 
Her beauty's praise, but musing o'er her lot. 
' Her garments one by one she laid aside, 
And then her knotted hair's long locks untied 
With careless hand, and down her cheeks they fell, 
And o'er her maiden bosom's blue-veined swell. 
The right-hand fingers played amidst her hair, 
And with her reverie wandered here and there : 
The other hand sustained the only dress 
That now but half concealed her loveliness ; 
And pausing, aimlessly she stood and thought, 
In virgin beauty by no fear distraught.' 

Manifold, and beautiful of their sort, are Anne's musings, in this 
interesting attitude, in the summer midnight, in the crisis of her 
destiny now near ; — at last : 

' But Anne, at last her mute devotions o'er, 
Perceived the fact she had forgot before 
Of her too shocking nudity ; and shame 
Flushed from her heart o'er all the snowy frame : 
And, struck from top to toe with burning dread, 
She blew the light out, and escaped to bed.' 3 

— which also is a very pretty movement. 

It must be owned withal, the Piece is crude in parts, and 
far enough from perfect. Our good painter has yet several things 
to learn, and to unlearn. His brush is not always of the finest ; 
and dashes about, sometimes, in a recognisably sprawling way : 
but it hits many a feature with decisive accuracy and felicity ; 
and on the palette, as usual, lie the richest colours. A grand 
merit, too, is the brevity of everything ; by no means a sponta- 
neous, or quite common merit with Sterling. 

This new poetic Duodecimo, as the last had done and as 
the next also did, met with little or no recognition from the 
world : which was not very inexcusable on the world's part ; 
though many a poem with far less proof of merit than this offers, 
has run, when the accidents favoured it, through its tens of 
editions, and raised the writer to the demigods for a year or two, 
if not longer. Such as it is, we may take it as marking, in its 
small way, in a noticed or unnoticed manner, a new height 

3 Pp. 89-93. 

o 



194 JOHN STERLING. 

arrived at by Sterling in his Poetic course ; and almost as vin- 
dicating the determination he had formed to keep climbing by 
that method. Poor Poem, or rather Promise of a Poem ! In 
Sterling's brave struggle, this little Election is the highest point 
he fairly lived to see attained, and openly demonstrated in print. 
PI is next public adventure in this kind was of inferior worth ; and 
a third, which had perhaps intrinsically gone much higher than 
any of its antecessors, was cut-off as a fragment, and has not 
hitherto been published. Steady courage is needed on the Poetic 
course, as on all courses ! — 

Shortly after this Publication, in the beginning of 1 842, 
poor Calvert, long a hopeless sufferer, was delivered by death : 
Sterling's faithful fellow-pilgrim could no more attend him in 
his wayfarings through this world. The weary and heavy-laden 
man had borne his burden well. Sterling says of him to Hare: 
' Since I wrote last, I have lost Calvert ; the man with whom, 
' of all others, I have been during late years the most intimate. 
' Simplicity, benevolence, practical good sense and moral earn- 
' estness were his great unfailing characteristics ; and no man, 
' I believe, ever possessed them more entirely. His illness had 
' latterly so prostrated him, both in mind and body, that those 
' who most loved him were most anxious for his departure.' 
There was something touching in this exit ; in the quenching of 
so kind and bright a little life under the dark billows of death. 
To me he left a curious old Print of James Nayler the Quaker, 
which I still affectionately preserve. 

Sterling, from this greater distance, came perhaps rather 
seldomer to London ; but we saw him still at moderate intervals ; 
and, through his family here and other direct and indirect chan- 
nels, were kept in lively communication with him. Literature 
was still his constant pursuit ; and, with encouragement or with- 
out, Poetic composition his chosen department therein. On the 
ill success of The Election, or any ill success with the world, 
nobody ever heard him utter the least murmur ; condolence upon 
that or any such subject might have been a questionable opera- 
tion, by no means called for ! Nay, my own approval, higher 
than this of the world, had been languid, by no means enthusi- 
astic. But our valiant friend took all quietly ; and was not to 
be repulsed from his Poetics cither by the world's coldness or 



FALMOUTH : POEMS. 195 

by mine ; he laboured at his Strafford j — determined to labour, 
in all ways, till he felt the end of his tether in this direction. 

He sometimes spoke, with a certain zeal, of my starting a 
Periodical : Why not lift-up some kind of war-flag against the 
obese platitudes, and sickly superstitious aperies and impos- 
tures of the time ? But I had to answer, " Who will join it, my 
friend ?" He seemed to say, " I, for one ;" and there was oc- 
casionally a transient temptation in the thought, but transient 
only. No fighting regiment, with the smallest attempt towards 
drill, cooperation, commissariat, or the like unspeakable advan- 
tages, could be raised in Sterling's time or mine ; which truly, 
to honest fighters, is a rather grievous want. A grievous, but 
not quite a fatal one. For, failing this, failing all things and 
all men, there remains the solitary battle (and were it by the 
poorest weapon, the tongue only, or were it even by wise abstin- 
ence and silence and without any weapon), such as each man 
for himself can wage while he has life : an indubitable and 
infinitely comfortable fact for every man ! Said battle shaped 
itself for Sterling, as we have long since seen, chiefly in the' 
poetic form, in the singing or hymning rather than the speak- 
ing form ; and in that he was cheerfully assiduous according 
to his light. The unfortunate Strafford is far on towards com- 
pletion ; a Camr-de-Lion, of which we shall hear farther, ' Camr- 
de-Lion, greatly the best of all his Poems,' unluckily not com- 
pleted, and still unpublished, already hangs in the wind. 

His Letters to friends continue copious ; and he has, as 
always, a loyally interested eye on whatsoever of notable is 
passing in the world. Especially on whatsoever indicates to 
him the spiritual condition of the world. Of ' Strauss,' in 
English or in German, we now hear nothing more ; of Church 
matters, and that only to special correspondents, less and less. 
Strauss, whom he used to mention, had interested him only as 
a sign of the times ; in which sense alone do we find, for a year 
or two back, any notice of the Church, or its affairs by Sterling; 
and at last even this as good as ceases : "Adieu, O Church ; 
thy road is that way, mine is this : in God's name, adieu !" 
' What we are going to,' says he once, 'is abundantly obscure; 
' but what all men are going from, is very plain.' — Sifted out 
of 'many pages, not of sufficient interest, here are one or two 
miscellaneous sentences, about the date we are now arrived at : 



196 JOHN STERLING. 

Falmouth, 3d November 1841 (To Dr. Symonds). — 'Yes- 
' terday was my Wedding-day : eleven years of marriage ; and 
' on the whole my verdict is clear for matrimony. I solemnised 
' the day by reading John Gilpin to the children, who with 
' their Mother are all pretty well.' * * * ' There is a trick 

• of sham Elizabethan writing now prevalent, that looks plau- 
' sible, but in most cases means nothing at all. Darley has 
' real (lyrical) genius ; Taylor, wonderful sense, clearness and 
' weight of purpose ; Tennyson, a rich and exquisite fancy. All 
' the other men of our tiny generation that I know of are, in 
' Poetry, either feeble or fraudulent. I know nothing of the 
' Reviewer you ask about.' 

Deceinber nth (To his Mother). — 'I have seen no new 

• books ; but am reading your last. I got hold of the two first 
' Numbers of the Hoggarty Diamond; and read them with 
' extreme delight. What is there better in Fielding or Gold- 
' smith ? The man is a true genius; and, with quiet and coni- 

• fort, might produce masterpieces that would last as long as 
' any we have, and delight millions of unborn readers. There 
' is more truth and nature in one of these papers than in all 

' 's Novels together.' — Thackeray, always a close friend 

of the Sterling house, will observe that this is dated 1841, not 
1 85 1, and have his own reflections on the matter. 

December ijth (To the same). — ' I am not much surprised 

• at Lady 's views of Coleridge's little Book on Inspiration? 

— ' Great part of the obscurity of the Letters arises from his 
' anxiety to avoid the difficulties and absurdities of the common 
' views, and his panic terror of saying anything that bishops 
' and good people would disapprove. He paid a heavy price, 
' viz. all his own candour and simplicity, in hope of gaining 

' the favour of persons like Lady ; and you see what his 

' reward is ! A good lesson for us all.' 

February 1st, 1842 (To the same). — ' English Toryism has, 
' even in my eyes, about as much to say for itself as any other 
' form of doctrine ; but Irish Toryism is the downright pro- 
' clamation of brutal injustice, and all in the name of God and 
' the Bible ! It is almost enough to make one turn Mahometan, 

• but for the fear of the four wives.' 

March 12th, 1842 (To his Father). — « * * * Important 
' to me as these matters are, it almost seems as if there were 



NAPLES : POEMS. 197 

1 something unfeeling in writing of them, under the pressure of 
1 such news as ours from India. If the Cabool Troops have 
' perished, England has not received such a blow from an ene- 
' my, nor anything approaching it, since Buckingham's Expe- 
' dition to the Isle of Rhe. Walcheren destroyed us by climate ; 
' and Corunna, with all its losses, had much of glory. But here 

• we are dismally injured by mere Barbarians, in a War on our 
' part shamefully unjust as well as foolish : a combination of 
' disgrace and calamity that would have shocked Augustus even 
' more than the defeat of Varus. One of the four officers with 
' Macnaghten was George Lawrence, a brother-in-law of Nat 
1 Barton ; a distinguished man, and the father of five totally 
' unprovided children. He is a prisoner, if not since murdered. 
' Macnaghten I do not pity ; he was the prime author of the 
' whole mad War. But Burnes ; and the women ; and our 
' regiments ! India, however, I feel sure, is safe.' 

So roll the months at Falmouth ; such is the ticking of the 
great World-Horologe as heard there by a good ear. ' I will- 
' ingly add' (so ends he, once), * that I lately found somewhere 
' this fragment of an Arab's love-song : " O Ghalia ! If my 
' father were a jackass, I would sell him to purchase Ghalia !" 
' A beautiful parallel to the French " Avec cette sauce on man- 

* gerait son fiere." ' 



CHAPTER IV. 

NAPLES : POEMS. 

In the bleak weather of this spring 1 842, he was again abroad 
for a little while ; partly from necessity, or at least utility ; and 
partly, as I guess, because the circumstances favoured, and he 
could with a good countenance indulge a little wish he had long 
had. In the Italian Tour, which ended suddenly by Mrs. Ster- 
ling's illness recalling him, he had missed Naples ; a loss which 
he always thought to be considerable ; and which, from time 
to time, he had formed little projects, failures hitherto, for sup- 
plying. The rigours of spring were always dangerous to him 
in England, and it was always of advantage to get out of them: 
and then the sight of Naples, too ; this, always a thing to be 



198 JOHN STERLING. 

done some day, was now possible. Enough, with the real or 
imaginary hope of bettering himself in health, and the certain 
one of seeing Naples, and catching a glance of Italy again, he 
now made a run thither. It was not long after Calvert's death. 
The Tragedy of Strafford lay finished in his desk. Several 
things, sad and- bright, were finished. A little intermezzo of 
ramble was not unadvisable. 

His tour by water and by land was brief and rapid enough ; 
hardly above two months in all. Of which the following Letters 
will, with some abridgment, give us what details are needful : 

' To Charles Barton, Esq., Leamington. 

' Falmouth, 25th March 1842. 

'My dear Charles, — My attempts to shoot you flying 
' with my paper pellets turned out very ill. I hope young ladies 
' succeed better when they happen to make appointments with 
' you. Even now, I hardly know whether you have received a 
1 Letter I wrote on Sunday last, and addressed to The Caven- 
' dish. I sent it thither by Susan's advice. 

' In this missive, — happily for us both, it did not contain a 
' hundred-pound note or any trifle of that kind, — I informed 
' you that I was compelled to plan an expedition towards the 
' South Pole, stopping, however, in the Mediterranean ; and 
' that I designed leaving this on Monday next for Cadiz or Gib- 
' raltar, and then going on to Malta, whence Italy and Sicily 
' would be accessible. Of course your company would be a 
' great pleasure, if it were possible for you to join me. The 
' delay in hearing from you, through no fault of yours, has na- 
' turally put me out a little ; but, on the whole, my plan still 
' holds, and I shall leave this on Monday for Gibraltar, where 
' the Great Liverpool will catch me, and carry me to Malta. 
' The Great LJverpool leaves Southampton on the 1st of April, 
' and Falmouth on the 2d ; and will reach Gibraltar in from 
' four to five days. 

' Now, if you should be able and disposed to join me, you 
' have only to embark in that sumptuous tea-kettle, and pick 
' me up under the guns of the Rack. We could then cruise on 
' to Malta, Sicily, Naples, Rome, &c. a discretion. It is just 
'possible, though extremely improbable, that my steamer of 
' Monday (most likely the Montrose) may not reach Gibraltar 



NAPLES : POEMS. 199 

' so soon as the Liverpool. If so, and if you should actually be 
' on board, you must stop at Gibraltar. But there are ninety- 
' nine chances to one against this. Write at all events to Susan, 

• to let her know what you propose. 

' I do not wait till the Great Liverpool goes, because the 
' object for me is to get into a warm climate as soon as pos- 

• sible. I am decidedly better. — Your affectionate Brother, 

'John Sterling.' 

Barton did not go with him, none went ; but he arrives 
safe, and not hurt in health, which is something. 

' To Mrs. Sterling, Knightsbridge, London. 

' Malta, 14th April 1842. 

'Dearest Mother, — I am writing to Susan through France, 
' by tomorrow's mail; and will also send you a line, instead of 
' waiting for the longer English conveyance. 

' We reached this the day before yesterday, in the evening ; 
' having had a strong breeze against us for a day or two before ; 
' which made me extremely uncomfortable, — and indeed my 
' headache is hardly gone yet. From about the 4th to the 9th 
' of the month, we had beautiful weather, and I was happy 
' enough. You will see by the map that the straightest line from 
' Gibraltar to this place goes close along the African coast ; 

* which accordingly we saw with the utmost clearness ; and 
' found it generally a line of mountains, the higher peaks and 
' ridges covered with snow. We went close-in to Algiers ; which 
' looks strong, but entirely from art. The town lies on the 
' slope of a straight coast ; and is not at all embayed, though 
' there is some little shelter for shipping within the mole. It 
' is a square patch of white buildings huddled together; fringed 
' with batteries ; and commanded by large forts on the ridge 
' above : a most uncomfortable-looking place ; though, no doubt, 
' there are cafes and billiard-rooms and a theatre within, — for 
' the French like to have their Houris &c. on this side of Para- 
' disc, if possible. 

' Our party of fifty people (we had taken some on board at 
' Gibraltar) broke up, on reaching this ; never, of course to 
' meet again. The greater part do not proceed to Alexandria. 

* Considering that there was a bundle of midshipmen, ensigns 



2oo JOHN STERLING. 

1 &c, we had as much reason among us as could perhaps be 
1 looked for ; and from several I gained bits of information and 

* traits of character, though nothing very remarkable.' 

' I have established myself in an inn, rather than go to Lady 

* Louis's j 1 not feeling quite equal to company, except in mode- 
' rate doses. I have, however, seen her a good deal ; and dine 
' there today, very privately, for Sir John is not quite well, and 
' they will have no guests. The place, however, is full of offi- 
' cial banqueting, for various unimportant reasons. When here 
' before, I was in much distress and anxiety, on my way from 
' Rome ; and I suppose this it was that prevented its making 
' the same impression on me as now, when it seems really the 
' stateliest town I have ever seen. The architecture is gene- 
' rally of a corrupt Roman kind ; with something of the varied 
' and picturesque look, though much more massive, of our 

* Elizabethan buildings. We have the finest English summer 
' and a pellucid sky.' * * ' Your affectionate 

1 John Sterling.' 

At Naples next, for three weeks, was due admiration of the 
sceneries and antiquities, Bay and Mountain, by no means for- 
getting Art and the Museum : ' to Pozzuoli, to Baiae, round the 
Promontory of Sorrento ;' — above all, ' twice to Pompeii,' where 
the elegance and classic simplicity of Ancient Housekeeping 
strikes us much ; and again to Paestum, where ' the Temple of 
' Neptune is far the noblest building I have ever seen ; and 
1 makes both Greek and Revived Roman seem quite barbaric' 
' Lord Ponsonby lodges in the same house with me ; — but, of 
' course, I do not countenance an adherent of a beaten Party !' 2 
— Or let us take this more compendious account, which has much 
more of human in it, from an onward stage, ten days later ; 

' To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London. 

' Rome, 13th May 1842. 

♦ My dear Carlyle, — I hope I wrote to you before leav- 

* ing England, to tell you of the necessity for my doing so. 

1 Sister of Mrs. Strachey and Mrs. Buller : Sir John Louis was now in a 
high Naval post at Malta. 

2 Long Letter to his Father : Naples, 3d May 1842. 



NAPLES: POEMS. 201 

' Though coming to Italy, there was little comfort in the pro- 

• spect of being divided from my family, and pursuits which 
1 grew on me every day. However, I tried to make the best 

• of it, and have gained both health and pleasure. 

1 In spite of scanty communications from England (owing 
1 to the uncertainty of my position), a word or two concerning 
' you and your dear Wife have reached me. Lately it has often 

• occurred to me, that the sight of the Bay of Naples, of the 

• beautiful coast from that to this place, and of Rome itself, all 
' bathed in summer sunshine, and green with spring foliage, 

• would be some consolation to her. 3 Pray give her my love. 

' I have been two days here ; and almost the first thing I 

• did was to visit the Protestant burial-ground, and the graves 
1 of those I knew when here before. But much as being now 
' alone here I feel the difference, there is no scene where Death 
' seems so little dreadful and miserable as in the lonelier neigh- 
' bourhoods of this old place. All one's impressions, however, 
' as to that and everything else, appear to me, on reflection, 

• more affected than I had for a long time any notion of, by 
' one's own isolation. All the feelings and activities which 

• family, friends and occupation commonly engage, are turned, 
' here in one's solitude, with strange force into the channels of 
1 mere observation and contemplation ; and the objects one is 
« conversant with seem to gain a tenfold significance from the 
' abundance of spare interest one now has to bestow on them. 
' This explains to me a good deal of the peculiar effect that Italy 

• has always had on me : and something of that artistic enthu- 
' siasm which I remember you used to think so singular in 
' Goethe's Travels. Darley, who is as much a brooding hermit 
' in England as here, felt nothing but disappointment from a 
' country which fills me with childish wonder and delight. 

' Of you I have received some slight notice from Mrs. 

• Strachey ; who is on her way hither ; and will (she writes) be 
' at Florence on the 15th, and here before the end of the month. 
' She notices having received a Letter of yours which had pleased 
' her much. She now proposes spending the summer at Sor- 
' rento, or thereabouts ; and if mere delight of landscape and 
' climate were enough, Adam and Eve, had their courier taken 
' them to that region, might have done well enough without 

3 Death of her Mother, four months before. {Note 0/1870.) 



202 JOHN STERLING. 

' Paradise, — and not been tempted, either, by any Tree of Know- 
' ledge ; a kind that does not flourish in the Two Sicilies. 

' The ignorance of the Neapolitans, from the highest to the 
' lowest, is very eminent ; and excites the admiration of all the 
' rest of Italy. In the great building containing all the Works 
' of Art, and a Library of 150,000 volumes, I asked for the 
' best existing Book (a German one published ten years ago) on 
' the Statues in that very Collection ; and, after a rabble of 
' clerks and custodes, got up to a dirty priest, who bowing to 
' the ground regretted "they did not possess it," but at last 
' remembered that "they had entered into negotiations on the 
' subject, which as yet had been unsuccessful." — -The favourite 
' device on the walls at Naples is a vermilion Picture of a Male 
' and Female Soul respectively up to the waist (the waist of a 
' soul) in fire, and an Angel above each, watering the sufferers 
' from a watering-pot. This is intended to gain alms for Masses. 
' The same populace sit for hours on the Mole, listening to 
' rhapsodists who recite Ariosto. I have seen I think five of 
' them all within a hundred yards of each other, and some sets 
' of fiddlers to boot. Yet there are few parts of the world where 
' I have seen less laughter than there. The Miracle of Janu- 
' arius's Blood is, on the whole, my most curious experience. 
' The furious entreaties, shrieks and sobs, of a set of old women, 
' yelling till the Miracle was successfully performed, are things 

* never to be forgotten. 

1 I spent three weeks in this most glittering of countries, 
'and saw most of the usual wonders, — the Psestan Temples 
1 being to me much the most valuable. But Pompeii and all 
' that it has yielded, especially the Fresco Paintings, have also 
' an infinite interest. When one considers that this prodigious 
' series of beautiful designs supplied the place of our common 
' room-papers, — the wealth of poetic imagery among the An- 
' cients, and the corresponding traditional variety and elegance 
' of pictorial treatment, seem equally remarkable. The Greek 
' and Latin Books do not give one quite so fully this sort of 
' impression ; because they afford no direct measure of the ex- 

• tent of their own diffusion. But these are ornaments from the 
' smaller class of decent houses in a little Country Town ; and 
' the greater number of them, by the slightness of the execution, 
' show very clearly that they were adapted to ordinary taste, 



NAPLES : POEMS. 203 

' and done by mere artisans. In general clearness, symmetry 
' and simplicity of feeling, I cannot say that, on the whole, the 
' works of Raffaelle equal them ; though of course he has end- 
' less beauties such as we could not find unless in the great 
' original works from which these sketches at Pompeii were 
' taken. Yet with all my much increased reverence for the 
' Greeks, it seems more plain than ever that they had hardly 
' anything of the peculiar devotional feeling of Christianity. 

' Rome, which I loved before above all the earth, now dc- 
' lights me more than ever ; — though at this moment there is 
' rain falling that would not discredit Oxford Street. The depth, 
' sincerity and splendour that there once was in the semi-pagan- 
' ism of the old Catholics comes out in St. Peter's and its de- 
' pendencies, almost as grandly as does Greek and Roman Art 
' in the Forum and the Vatican Galleries. I wish you were 
1 here : but, at all events, hope to see you and your Wife once 
' more during this summer. — Yours, John Sterling.' 

At Paris, where he stopped a clay and night, and generally 
through his whole journey from Marseilles to Havre, one thing 
attended him : the prevailing epidemic of the place and year ; 
now gone, and nigh forgotten, as other influenzas are. He 
writes to his Father : ' I have not yet met a single Frenchman, 
' who could give me any rational explanation why they were all 
' in such a confounded rage against us. Definite causes of 
' quarrel a statesman may know how to deal with, inasmuch as 
' the removal of them may help to settle the dispute. But it 
' must be a puzzling task to negotiate about instincts ; to which 
' class, as it seems to me, we must have recourse for an under- 
' standing of the present abhorrence which everybody on the 
' other side of the Channel not only feels, but makes a point to 
' boast of, against the name of Britain. France is slowly arm- 
' ing, especially with Steam, en attendant a more than possible 
' contest, in which they reckon confidently on the eager coopera- 
' tion of the Yankees; as, vice versa, an American told me that 
' his countrymen do on that of France. One person at Paris 

' (M. whom you know) provoked me to tell him that 

' " England did not want another battle of Trafalgar ; but if 
' France did, she might compel England to gratify her." ' — • 
After a couple of pleasant and profitable months, he was safe 



204 JOHN STERLING. 

home again in the first days of June ; and saw Falmouth not 
under gray iron skys, and whirls of March dust, but bright with 
summer opulence and the roses coming out. 

It was what I call his fifth peregrinity ;' his fifth and last. 
He soon afterwards came up to London ; spent a couple of 
weeks, with all his old vivacity, among us here. The ^Escula- 
pian oracles, it would appear, gave altogether cheerful prophecy ; 
the highest medical authority ' expresses the most decided opi- 
' nion that I have gradually mended for some years ; and in 
' truth I have not, for six or seven, been so free from serious 
' symptoms of illness as at present.' So uncertain are all oracles, 
.^Esculapian and other ! 

During this visit, he made one new acquaintance which he 
much valued ; drawn thither, as I guess, by the wish to take 
counsel about Strafford. He writes to his Clifton friend, under 
date, ist July 1842 : * Lockhart, of the Quarterly Review, I 
' made my first oral acquaintance with ; and found him as neat, 
' clear and cutting a brain as you would expect ; but with an 
' amount of knowledge, good nature and liberal antibigotry, that 
' would much surprise many. The tone of his children towards 
' him seemed to me decisive of his real kindness. He quite 
' agreed with me as to the threatening seriousness of our present 
' social perplexities, and the necessity and difficulty of doing 
' something effectual for so satisfying the manual multitude as 
' not to overthrow all legal security.' 

' Of other persons whom I saw in London,' continues he, 
' there are several that would much interest you, — though I 
' missed Tennyson, by a mere chance.' * * * 'John Mill has 
' completely finished, and sent to the bookseller, his great work 
' on Logic ; the labour of many years of a singularly subtle, 
' patient and comprehensive mind. It will be our chief specu- 
' lative monument of this age. Mill and I could not meet above 
' two or three times ; but it was with the openness and fresh- 
' ness of schoolboy friends, though our friendship only dates 
' from the manhood of both.' 

He himself was busier than ever ; occupied continually with 
all manner of Poetic interests. Cceur-de-Lio?t, a new and more 
elaborate attempt in the mock-heroic or comico-didactic vein, 
had been on hand for some time, the scope of it greatly deepen- 
ing and expanding itself since it first took hold ot him ; and now, 



NAPLES : POEMS. 205 

soon after the Naples journey, it rose into shape on the wider 
plan ; shaken-up probably by this new excitement, and indebted 
to Calabria, Palermo and the Mediterranean scenes for much of 
the vesture it had. With this, which opened higher hopes for 
him than any of his previous efforts, he was now employing all 
his time and strength ; — and continued to do so, this being the 
last effort granted him among us. 

Already, for some months, Straffordlay complete : but how 
to get it from the stocks ; in what method to launch it ? The 
step was questionable. Before going to Italy he had sent me 
the Manuscript ; still loyal and friendly ; and willing to hear the 
worst that could be said of his poetic enterprise. I had to afflict 
him again, the good brave soul, with the deliberate report that 
I could not accept this Drama as his Picture of the Life of 
Strafford, or as any Picture of that strange Fact. To which he 
answered, with an honest manfulness, in a tone which is now 
pathetic enough to me, that he was much grieved yet much 
obliged, and uncertain how to decide. On the other hand, Mr. 
Hare wrote, warmly eulogising. Lockhart too spoke kindly, 
though taking some exceptions. It was a questionable case. 
On the whole, Strafford remained, for the present, unlaunched; 
and Coeur-de-Lion was getting its first timbers diligently laid 
down. So passed, in peaceable seclusion, in wholesome em- 
ployment and endeavour, the autumn and winter of 1842-3. 
On Christmas-day, he reports to his Mother : 

' I wished to write to you yesterday ; but was prevented by 
' the important business of preparing a Tree, in the German 
' fashion, for the children. This project answered perfectly, as 
' it did last year ; and gave them the greatest pleasure. I wish 
' you and my Father could have been here to see their merry 
1 faces. Johnny was in the thick of the fun, and much happier 
' than Lord Anson on capturing the galleon. We are all going 
' on well and quietly, but with nothing very new among us.' — 

* The last book I have lighted on is Moffat's Missionary Labours 
' in South Africa j which is worth reading. There is the best 

* collection of lion stories in it that I have ever seen. But the 
' man is, also, really a very good fellow ; and fit for something 
' much better than most lions are. He is very ignorant, and 

* mistaken in some things ; but has strong sense and heart ; and 

* his Narrative adds another to the many proofs of the enormous 



206 JOHN STERLING. 

' power of Christianity on rude minds. Nothing can be more 
' chaotic, that is human at all, than the notions of these poor 
1 Blacks, even after what is called their conversion ; but the 
' effect is produced. They do adopt pantaloons, and abandon 
' polygamy ; and I suppose will soon have newspapers and lite- 
' rary soirees.' 

CHAPTER V. 

DISASTER ON DISASTER. 

During all these years of struggle and wayfaring, his Father's 
household at Knightsbridge had stood healthful, happy, increas- 
ing in wealth, free diligence, solidity and honest prosperity ; a 
fixed sunny islet, towards which, in all his voyagings and over- 
clouded roamings, he could look with satisfaction, as to an ever- 
open port of refuge. 

The elder Sterling, after many battles, had reached his field 
of conquest in these years ; and was to be regarded as a victo- 
rious man. Wealth sufficient, increasing not diminishing, had 
rewarded his labours in the Times, which were now in their full 
flower ; he had influence of a sort ; went busily among busy 
public men ; and enjoyed, in the questionable form attached to 
journalism and anonymity, a social consideration and position 
which were abundantly gratifying to him. A singular figure of 
the epoch ; and whgn you came to know him, which it was easy 
to fail of doing if you had not eyes and candid insight, a gallant, 
truly gifted, and manful figure, of his kind. We saw much of 
him in this house ; much of all his family ; and had grown to 
love them all right well, — him too, though that was the difficult 
part, of the feat. For in his Irish way he played the conjuror 
very much, — "three-hundred and sixty-five opinions in the year 
upon every subject," as a wag once said. In fact his talk, ever 
ingenious, emphatic and spirited in detail, was much defective 
in earnestness, at least in clear earnestness, of purport and out- 
come ; but went tumbling as if in mere welters of explosive 
unreason ; a volcano heaving under vague deluges of scorire, 
ashes and imponderous pumice-stones, you could not say in 
what direction, nor well whether in any. Not till after good 
study did you see the deep molten lava-flood, which simmered 



DISASTER ON DISASTER. 207 

steadily enough, and showed very well by and by whither it was 
bound. For I must say of Edward Sterling, after all his daily 
explosive sophistries, and fallacies of talk, he had a stubborn 
instinctive sense of what was manful, strong and worthy ; recog- 
nised, with quick feeling, the charlatan under his soiemnest wig; 
knew as clearly as any man a pusillanimous tailor in buckram, 
an ass under the lion's skin, and did with his whole heart de- 
spise the same. 

The sudden changes of doctrine in the Times, which failed 
not to excite loud censure and indignant amazement in those 
days, were first intelligible to you when you came to interpret 
them as his changes. These sudden whirls from east to west on 
his part, and total changes of party and articulate opinion at a 
day's warning, lay in the nature of the man, and could not be 
helped ; products of his fiery impatience, of the combined im- 
petuosity and limitation of an intellect, which did nevertheless 
continually gravitate towards what was loyal, true and right on 
all manner of subjects. These, as I define them, were the mere 
scoriae and pumice wreck of a steady central lava-flood, which 
truly was volcanic and explosive to a strange degree, but did 
rest as few others on the grand fire-depths of the world. Thus, 
if he stormed along, ten thousand strong, in the time of the 
Reform Bill, indignantly denouncing Toryism and its obsolete 
insane pretensions ; and then if, after some experience of 
Whig management, he discerned that Wellington and Peel, by 
whatever name entitled, were the men to be depended on by 
England, — there lay in all this, visible enough, a deeper con- 
sistency far more important than the superficial one, so much 
clamoured after by the vulgar. Which is the lion's-skin ; which 
is the real lion ? Let a man, if he is prudent, ascertain that 
before speaking ; — but above and beyond all things, let him 
ascertain it, and stand valiantly to it when ascertained ! In 
the latter essential part of the operation Edward Sterling was 
honourably successful to a really marked degree ; in the. former, 
or prudential part, very much the reverse, as his history in 
the Journalistic department at least, was continually teaching 
him. 

An amazingly impetuous, hasty, explosive man, this " Cap- 
tain Whirlwind," as I used to call him ! Great sensibility lay in 
him, too ; a real sympathy, and affectionate pity and softness, 



2o8 JOHN STERLING. 

which he had an over-tendency to express even by tears, — a sin- 
gular sight in so leonine a man. Enemies called them maudlin 
and hypocritical, these tears ; but that was nowise the com- 
plete account of them. On the whole, there did conspicuously 
lie a dash of ostentation, a self-consciousness apt to become 
loud and braggart, over all he said and did and felt : this was 
the alloy of the man, and you had to be thankful for the abun- 
dant gold along with it. 

Quizzing enough he got among us for all this, and for the 
singular chiaroscuro manner of procedure, like that ofanArchi- 
magus Cagliostro, or Kaiser Joseph Incognito, which his anony- 
mous known-unknown thunderings in the Times necessitated 
in him ; and much we laughed, — not without explosive counter- 
banterings on his part ; — but, in fine, one could not do without 
him ; one knew him at heart for a right brave man. " By Jove, 
sir !" thus he would swear to you, with radiant face ; sometimes, 
not often, by a deeper oath. With persons of dignity, especially 
with women, to whom he was always very gallant, he had courtly 
delicate manners, verging towards the wiredrawn and elaborate; 
on common occasions, he bloomed-out at once into jolly famili- 
arity of the gracefully-boisterous kind, reminding you of mess- 
rooms and old Dublin days. His offhand mode of speech was 
always precise, emphatic, ingenious : his laugh, which was fre- 
quent rather than otherwise, had a sincerity of banter, but no 
real depth of sense for the ludicrous ; and soon ended, if it 
grew too loud, in a mere dissonant scream. He was broad, well- 
built, stout of stature ; had a long lowish head, sharp gray eyes, 
with large strong aquiline face to match ; and walked, or sat, 
in an erect decisive manner. A remarkable man; and playing, 
especially in those years 1830-40, a remarkable part in the 
world. 

For it may be said, the emphatic, big-voiced, always influ- 
ential and often strongly unreasonable Times Newspaper was 
the express emblem of Edward Sterling ; he, more than any 
other man or circumstance, was the Times Newspaper, and 
thundered through it to the shaking of the spheres. And let us 
assert withal that his and its influence, in those days, was not 
ill-grounded but rather well ; that the loud manifold unreason, 
often enough vituperated and groaned over, was of the surface 
mostly ; that his conclusions, unreasonable, partial, hasty as 



DISASTER ON DISASTER. 209 

they might at first be, gravitated irresistibly towards the right : 
in virtue of which grand quality indeed, the root of all good 
insight in man, his Times oratory found acceptance, and influ- 
ential audience, amid the loud whirl of an England itself logic- 
ally very stupid, and wise chiefly by instinct. 

England listened to this voice, as all might observe ; and 
to one who knew England and it, the result was not quite a 
strange one, and was honourable rather than otherwise to both 
parties. A good judge of men's talents has been heard to say 
of Edward Sterling: "There is not a faculty of improvising 
" equal to this in all my circle. Sterling rushes out into the 
" clubs, into London society, rolls about all day, copiously talk- 
" ing modish nonsense or sense, and listening to the like, with 
" the multifarious miscellany of men ; comes home at night; 
" redacts it into a Times Leader, — and is found to have hit the 
" essential purport of the world's immeasurable babblement that 
" day, with an accuracy beyond all other men. This is what 
" the multifarious Babel sound did mean to say in clear words; 
" this, more nearly than anything else. Let the most gifted 
" intellect, capable of writing epics, try to write such a Leader 
" for the Morning Newspapers ! No intellect but Edward Ster- 
" ling's can do it. An improvising faculty without parallel in 
" my experience." — In this 'improvising faculty,' much more 
nobly developed, as well as in other faculties and qualities with 
unexpectedly new and improved figure, John Sterling, to the ac- 
curate observer, showed himself very much the son of Edward. 

Connected with this matter, a remarkable Note has come 
into my hands ; honourable to the man I am writing of, and in 
some sort to another higher man ; which, as it may now (un- 
happily for us all) be published without scruple, I will not with- 
hold here. The support, by Edward Sterling and the Timns, of 
Sir Robert Peel's first Ministry, and generally of Peel's states- 
manship, was a conspicuous fact in its day ; but the return it 
met with from the person chiefly interested may be considered 
well worth recording. The following Letter, after meandering 
through I know not what intricate conduits, and consultations 
of the Mysterious Entity whose address it bore, came to Edward 
Sterling, as the real flesh-and-blood proprietor, and has been 
found among his papers. It is marked Private : 



2io JOHN STERLING. 

' (Private) To the Editor of the Times. 

'Whitehall, 18th April 1835. 

'Sir, — Having this day delivered into the hands of the 
' King the Seals of Office, I can, without any imputation of an 
1 interested motive, or any impediment from scrupulous feelings 
' of delicacy, express my deep sense of the powerful support 
' which that Government over which I had the honour to pre- 
' side received from the Times Newspaper. 

' If I do not offer the expressions of personal gratitude, it 
' is because I feel that such expressions would do injustice to 
' the character of a support which was given exclusively on the 
' highest and most independent grounds of public principle. I 
' can say this with perfect truth, as I am addressing one whose 
' person even is unknown to me, and who during my tenure of 
• power studiously avoided every species of intercourse which 
' could throw a suspicion upon the motives by which he was 
' actuated. I should, however, be doing injustice to my own 
' feelings, if I were to retire from Office without one word of 
' acknowledgment ; without at least assuring you of the admir- 
' ation with which I witnessed, during the arduous contest in 
4 which I was engaged, the daily exhibition of that extraordinary 
1 ability to which I was indebted for a support, the more valu- 
' able because it was an impartial and discriminating support. 
' — I have the honour to be, Sir, — Ever your most obedient 
' and faithful servant, Robert Peel.' 

To which, with due loftiness and diplomatic gravity and 
brevity, there is Answer, Draught of Answer in Edward Ster- 
ling's hand, from the Mysterious Entity so honoured, in the 
following terms : 

' To the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart. &>c. 6^0. &>c. 

' Sir, — It gives me sincere satisfaction to learn from the 
' Letter with which you have honoured me, bearing yesterday's 
' date, that you estimate so highly the efforts which have been 
' made during the last five months by the Times Newspaper to 
' support the cause of rational and wholesome Government 
' which his Majesty had intrusted to your guidance ; and that 
' you appreciate fairly the disinterested motive, of regard to the 



DISASTER ON DISASTER. 211 

• public welfare, and to that alone, through which this Journal 

• has been prompted to pursue a policy in accordance with that 
' of your Administration. It is, permit me to say, by such 
' motives only, that the Times, ever since I have known it, has 

• been influenced, whether in defence of the Government of the 
' day, or in constitutional resistance to it : and indeed there 
' exist no other motives of action for a Journalist, compatible 
' either with the safety of the press, or with the political mo- 
' rality of the great bulk of its readers. — With much respect, I 
' have the honour to be, Sir, &c. &c. &c. 

1 The Editor of the " Times." ' 

Of this Note I do not think there was the least whisper 
during Edward Sterling's lifetime ; which fact also one likes to 
remember of him, so ostentatious and little-reticent a man. For 
the rest, his loyal admiration of Sir Robert Peel, — sanctioned, 
and as it were almost consecrated to his mind, by the great 
example of the Duke of Wellington, whom he reverenced always 
with true hero-worship, — was not a journalistic one, but a most 
intimate authentic feeling, sufficiently apparent in the very heart 
of his mind. Among the many opinions ' liable to three hun- 
dred and sixty-five changes in the course of the year,' this in 
reference to Peel and Wellington was one which never changed, 
but was the same all days and hours. To which, equally genu- 
ine, and coming still oftener to light in those times, there might 
one other be added, one and hardly more : fixed contempt, not 
unmingled with detestation, for Daniel O'Connell. This latter 
feeling, we used often laughingly to say, was his grand political 
principle, the one firm centre where all else went revolving. 
But internally the other also was deep and constant ; and in- 
deed these were properly his two centres, — poles of the same 
axis, negative and positive, the one presupposing the other. 

O'Connell he had known in young Dublin days ; — and 
surely no man could well venerate another less ! It was his 
deliberate, unalterable opinion of the then Great O, that good 
would never come of him ; that only mischief, and this in huge 
measure, would come. That however showy, and adroit in 
rhetoric and management, he was a man of incurably common- 
place intellect, and of no character but a hollow, blustery, pusil- 
lanimous and unsound one ; great only in maudlin patriotisms, 



212 JOHN STERLING. 

in speciosities, astucities, — in the miserable gifts for becoming 
Chief Demagogos, Leader of a deep-sunk Populace towards its 
Lands of Promise ; which trade, in any age or country, and 
especially in the Ireland of this age, our indignant friend re- 
garded (and with reason) as an extremely ugly one for a man. 
He had himself zealously advocated Catholic Emancipation, and 
was not without his Irish patriotism, very different from the 
Orange sort ; but the ' Liberator' was not admirable to him, 
and grew daily less so to an extreme degree. Truly, his scorn 
of the said Liberator, now riding in supreme dominion on the 
wings of blarney, devil-ward of a surety, with the Liberated all 
following and huzzaing ; his fierce gusts of wrath and abhor- 
rence over him, — rose occasionally almost to the sublime. We 
laughed often at these vehemences : — and they were not wholly 
laughable ; there was something very serious, and very true, in 
them ! This creed of Edward Sterling's would not now, in either 
pole of its axis, look so strange as it then did in many quarters. 

During those ten years which might be defined as the cul- 
minating period of Edward Sterling's life, his house at South 
Place, Knightsbridge, had worn a gay and solid aspect, as if 
built at last on the high tableland of sunshine and success, the 
region of storms and dark weather now all victoriously traversed 
and lying safe below. Health, work, wages, whatever is need- 
ful to a man, he had, in rich measure ; and a frank stout heart 
to guide the same : he lived in such style as pleased him ; drove 
his own chariot up and down (himself often acting as Jehu, and 
reminding you a little of Times thunder even in driving) ; con- 
sorted, after a fashion, with the powerful of the world ; saw in 
due vicissitude a miscellany of social faces round him, — plea- 
sant parties, which he liked well enough to garnish by a lord ; 
" Irish lord, if no better might be," as the banter went. For 
the rest, he loved men of worth and intellect, and recognised 
them well, whatever their title : this was his own patent of 
worth which Nature had given him ; a central light in the man, 
which illuminated into a kind of beauty, serious or humorous, 
all the artificialities he had accumulated on the surface of him. 
So rolled his days, not quietly, yet prosperously, in manifold 
commerce with men. At one in the morning, when all had 
vanished into sleep, his lamp was kindled in his library ; and 



DISASTER ON DISASTER. 213 

there, twice or thrice a week, for a three-hours space, he launched 
his bolts, which next morning were to shake the high places ot 
the world. 

John's relation to his Father, when one saw John here, was 
altogether frank, joyful and amiable : he ignored the Times 
thunder for most part, coldly taking the Anonymous for non- 
extant ; spoke of it floutingly, if he spoke at all : indeed a plea- 
sant half-bantering dialect was the common one between Father 
and Son ; and they, especially with the gentle, simple-hearted, 
just-minded Mother for treble-voice between them, made a very 
pretty glee-harmony together. 

So had it lasted, ever since poor John's voyagings began ; 
his Father's house standing always as a fixed sunny islet with 
safe harbour for him. So it could not always last. This sunny 
islet was now also to break and go down : so many firm islets, 
fixed pillars in his fluctuating world, pillar after pillar, were to 
break and go down ; till swiftly all, so to speak, were sunk in 
the dark waters, and he with them ! Our little History is now 
hastening to a close. 

In the beginning of 1843 news reached us that Sterling 
had, in his too reckless way, encountered a dangerous accident : 
maids, in the room where he was, were lifting a heavy table ; 
he, seeing them in difficulty, had snatched at the burden ; heaved 
it away, — but had broken a bloodvessel by the business ; and 
was now, after extensive hemorrhage, lying dangerously ill. 
The doctors hoped the worst was over ; but the case was evi- 
dently serious. In the same days, too, his Mother had been 
seized here by some painful disease, which from its continuance 
grew alarming. Sad omens for Edward Sterling, who by this 
time had as good as ceased writing or working in the Times, 
having comfortably winded-up his affairs there ; and was look- 
ing forward to a freer idle life befitting his advanced years 
henceforth. Fatal eclipse had fallen over that household of his ; 
never to be lifted off again till all darkened into night. 

By dint of watchful nursing, John Sterling got on foot once 
more : but his Mother did not recover, quite the contrary. Her 
case too grew very questionable. Disease of the heart, said 
the medical men at last ; not immediately, not perhaps for a 
length of years, dangerous to life, said they ; but without hope 



214 JOHN STERLING. 

of cure. The poor lady suffered much ; and, though affecting 
hope always, grew weaker and weaker. John ran up to Town 
in March ; I saw him, on the morrow or next day after, in his 
own room at Knightsbridge : he had caught fresh cold overnight, 
the servant having left his window up, but I was charged to say 
nothing of it, not to nutter the already troubled house : he was 
going home again that very day, and nothing ill would come of 
it. Wc understood the family at Falmouth, his Wife being now 
near her Confinement again, could at any rate comport with no 
long absence. He was cheerful, even rudely merry ; himself pale 
and ill, his poor Mother's cough audible occasionally through 
the wall. Very kind, too, and gracefully affectionate ; but I 
observed a certain grimness in his mood of mind, and under 
his light laughter lay something unusual, something stern, as if 
already dimmed in the coming shadows of Fate. "Yes, yes, 
" you are a good man: but I understand they mean to appoint 
" you to Rhadamanthus's post, which has been vacant for 
" some time ; and you will see how you like that !" This was 
one of the things he said ; a strange effulgence of wild drollery 
flashing through the ice of earnest pain and sorrow. He looked 
paler than usual : almost for the first time, I had myself a twinge 
of misgiving as to his own health; for hitherto I had been used 
to blame as much as pity his fits of dangerous illness, and would 
often angrily remonstrate with him that he might have excellent 
health, would he but take reasonable care of himself, and learn 
the art of sitting still. Alas, as if he could learn it ; as if Nature 
had not laid her ban on him even there, and said in smiles and 
frowns manifoldly, " No, that thou shalt not learn !" 

He went that day ; he never saw his good true Mother more. 
Very shortly afterwards, in spite of doctors' prophecies, and 
affectionate illusions, she grew alarmingly and soon hopelessly 
worse. Here are his last two Letters to her : 

' To Mrs. Sterling, Knightsbridge, London. 

'Falmouth, 8th April 1843. 

' Dearest Mother, — I could do you no good, but it would 
' be the greatest comfort to me if I could be near you. Nothing 
• would detain me but Susan's condition. I feel that until her 
' confinement is over, I ought to remain here, — unless you 
' wished me to go to you ; in which case she would be the first 



DISASTER ON DISASTER. 215 

• to send me off. Happily she is doing as well as possible, 
' and seems even to gain strength every day. She sends her 
' love to you. 

' The children are all doing well. I rode with Edward to- 
' day through some of the pleasant lanes in the neighbourhood; 
' and was delighted, as I have often been at the same season, 
' to see the primroses under every hedge. It is pleasant to 
' think that the Maker of them can make other flowers for the 
' gardens of his other mansions. We have here a softness in 
' the air, a smoothness of the clouds, and a mild sunshine, that 
' combine in lovely peace with the first green of spring and the 
' mellow whiteness of the sails upon the quiet sea. The whole 
' aspect of the world is full of a quiet harmony, that influences 
' even one's bodily frame, and seems to make one's very limbs 
' aware of something living, good and immortal in all around 
' us. Knowing how you suffer, and how weak you are, anything 
' is a blessing to me that helps me to rise out of confusion and 
' grief into the sense of God and joy. I could not indeed but 
' feel how much happier I should have been, this morning, had 
' you been with me, and delighting as you would have done in 
' all the little as well as the large beauty of the world. But it 
' was still a satisfaction to feel how much I owe to you of the 

• power of perceiving meaning, reality and sweetness in all 
1 healthful life. And thus I could fancy that you were still near 
' me ; and that I could see you, as I have so often seen you, 
' looking with earnest eyes at wayside flowers. 

' I would rather not have written what must recall your 
' thoughts to your present sufferings : but, dear Mother, I wrote 
' only what I felt ; and perhaps you would rather have it so, 
' than that I should try to find other topics. I still hope to be 
' with you before long. Meanwhile and always, God bless you, 
' is the prayer of — Your affectionate son, 

'John Sterling.' 

To the same. 

' Falmouth, 12th April 1843. 
' Dearest Mother, — I have just received my Father's Let- 
' ter ; which gives me at least the comfort of believing that you 
' do not suffer very much pain. That your mind has remained 
' so clear and strong, is an infinite blessing. 



216 JOHN STERLING. 

' I do not know anything in the world that would make up 
4 to me at all for wanting the recollection of the days I spent 
' with you lately, when I was amazed at the freshness and life 
' of all your thoughts. It brought back far-distant years, in the 
4 strangest, most peaceful way. I felt myself walking with you 
4 in Greenwich Park, and on the seashore at Sandgate ; almost 
4 even I seemed a baby, with you bending over me. Dear 
4 Mother, there is surely something uniting us that cannot perish. 
4 I seem so sure of a love which shall last and reunite us, that 
4 even the remembrance, painful as that is, of all my own follies 
c and ill tempers, cannot shake this faith. When I think of 
4 you, and know how you feel towards me, and have felt for 
' every moment of almost forty years, it would be too dark to 
' believe that we shall never meet again. It was from you that 
4 I first learnt to think, to feel, to imagine, to believe ; and these 
4 powers, which cannot be extinguished, will one day enter anew 
4 into communion with you. I have bought it very dear by the 
4 prospect of losing you in this world, — but since you have been 
4 so ill, everything has seemed to me holier, loftier and more 
4 lasting, more full of hope and final joy. 

4 It would be a very great happiness to see you once more 
' even here ; but I do not know if that will be granted to me. 
4 But for Susan's state, I should not hesitate an instant ; as it 
4 is, my duty seems to be to remain, and I have no right to 
' repine. There is no sacrifice that she would not make for me, 
4 and it would be too cruel to endanger her by mere anxiety on 
' my account. Nothing can exceed her sympathy with my sor- 
1 row. But she cannot know, no one can, the recollections of 
4 all you have been and done for me ; which now are the most 
4 sacred and deepest, as well as most beautiful, thoughts that 
'■ abide with me. May God bless you, dearest Mother. It is 
4 much to believe that He feels for you all that you have ever 
' felt for your children. John Sterling.' 

A clay or two after this, ' on Good Friday, 1843,' his Wife 
got happily through her confinement, bringing him, he writes, 
4 a stout little girl, who and the Mother are doing as well as 
: possible.' The little girl still lives and does well ; but for the 
Mother there was another lot. Till the Monday following she too 
did altogether well, he affectionately watching her ; but in the 



DISASTER ON DISASTER. 217 

course of that day, some change for the worse was noticed, 
though nothing to alarm either the doctors or him ; he watched 
by her bedside all night, still without alarm ; but sent again in 
the morning, Tuesday morning, for the doctors, — who did not 
seem able to make much of the symptoms. She appeared weak 
and low, but made no particular complaint. The London post 
meanwhile was announced ; Sterling went into another room 
to learn what tidings of his Mother it brought him. Returning 
speedily with a face which in vain strove to be calm, his Wife 
asked, How at Knightsbridge ? " My Mother is dead," ans- 
wered Sterling ; " died on Sunday : She is gone." " Poor old 
man !" murmured the other, thinking of old Edward Sterling 
now left alone in the world ; and these were her own last words : 
in two hours more she too was dead. In two hours Mother and 
Wife were suddenly both snatched away from him. 

' It came with awful suddenness !' writes he to his Clifton 
friend. ' Still for a short time I had my Susan: but I soon saw 
• that the medical men were in terror ; and almost within half 
' an hour of that fatal Knightsbridge news, I began to suspect 
' our own pressing danger. I received her last breath upon 
' my lips. Her mind was much sunk, and her perceptions slow ; 
1 but a few minutes before the last, she must have caught the 
' idea of dissolution ; and signed that I should kiss her. She 
' faltered painfully, "Yes ! yes !" — returned with fervency the 
' pressure of my lips ; and in a few moments her eyes began to 
' fix, her pulse to cease.' She too is gone from me ! It was 
Tuesday morning, April 18th, 1843. His Mother had died on 
the Sunday before. 

He had loved his excellent kind Mother, as he ought and 
well might : in that good heart, in all the wanderings of his own, 
there had ever been a shrine of warm pity, of mother's love and 
blessed soft affections for him ; and now it was closed in the 
Eternities forevermore. His poor Life-partner too, his other 
self, who had faithfully attended him so long in all his pilgrim- 
ings, cheerily footing the heavy tortuous ways along with him, 
can follow him no farther ; sinks now at his side : " The rest 
of your pilgrimings alone, O Friend, — adieu, adieu !" She too 
is forever hidden from his eyes ; and he stands, on the sudden, 
very solitary amid the tumult ot fallen and falling things. * My 



218 JOHN STERLING. 

• little baby girl is doing well ; poor little wreck cast upon the 

• seabeach of life. My children require me tenfold now. What 
1 I shall do, is all confusion and darkness.' 

The younger Mrs. Sterling was a true good woman ; loyal- 
hearted, willing to do well, and struggling wonderfully to do it 
amid her languors and infirmities ; rescuing, in many ways, 
with beautiful female heroism and adroitness, what of fertility 
their uncertain, wandering, unfertile way of life still left pos- 
sible, and cheerily making the most of it. A genial, pious and 
harmonious fund of character was in her ; and withal an indo- 
lent, half-unconscious force of intellect, and justness and deli- 
cacy of perception, which the casual acquaintance scarcely gave 
her credit for. Sterling much respected her decision in matters 
literary; often altering and modifying where her feeling clearly 
went against him ; and in verses especially trusting to her ear, 
which was excellent, while he knew his own to be worth little. 
I remember her melodious rich plaintive tone of voice ; and an 
exceedingly bright smile which she sometimes had, effulgent 
with sunny gaiety and true humour, among other fine qualities. 

Sterling has lost much in these two hours ; how much that 
has long been can never again be for him ! Twice in one morn- 
ing, so to speak, has a mighty wind smitten the corners of his 
house ; and much lies in dismal ruins round Llm. 



CHAPTER VI. 

VENTNOR : DEATH. 

In this sudden avalanche of sorrows Sterling, weak and 
worn as we have seen, bore up manfully, and with pious valour 
fronted what had come upon him. He was not a man to yield 
to vain wailings, or make repinings at the unalterable : here 
was enough to be long mourned over ; but here, for the mo- 
ment, was very much imperatively requiring to be done. That 
evening, he called his children round him ; spoke words of 
religious admonition and affection to them ; said, " He must 
now be a Mother as well as Father to them." On the even- 
ing of the funeral, writes Mr. Hare, he bade them good night, 
adding these words, " If I am taken from you, God will take 



VENTNOR: DEATH. 219 

care of you." He had six children left to his charge, two of 
them infants ; and a dark outlook ahead of them and him. The 
good Mrs. Maurice, the children's young Aunt, present at this 
time and often afterwards till all ended, was a great consolation. 

Falmouth, it may be supposed, had grown a sorrowful place 
to him, peopled with haggard memories in his weak state ; and 
now again, as had been usual with him, change of place sug- 
gested itself as a desirable alleviation ; — and indeed, in some 
sort, as a necessity. He has 'friends here,' he admits to him- 
self, ' whose kindness is beyond all price, all description ;' but 
his little children, if anything befell him, have no relative within 
two hundred miles. He is now sole watcher over them ; and 
his very life is so precarious ; nay, at any rate, it would appear, 
he has to leave Falmouth every spring, or run the hazard of 
worse. Once more, what is to be done ? Once more, — and 
now, as it turned out, for the last time. 

A still gentler climate, greater proximity to London, where 
his Brother Anthony now was and most of his friends and 
interests were : these considerations recommended Ventnor, in 
the beautiful South-eastern corner of the Isle of Wight ; where 
on inquiry an eligible house was found for sale. The house and 
its surrounding piece of ground, improvable both, were pur- 
chased ; he removed thither in June of this year 1 843 ; and 
set about improvements and adjustments on a frank scale. By 
the decease of his Mother, he had become rich in money; his 
share of the West-India properties having now fallen to him, 
which, added to his former incomings, made a revenue he could 
consider ample and abundant. Falmouth friends looked lovingly 
towards him, promising occasional visits ; old Herstmonceux, 
which he often spoke of revisiting but never did, was not far 
off ; and London, with all its resources and remembrances, was 
now again accessible. He resumed his work ; and had hopes 
of again achieving something. 

. The Poem of Cceur-de-Liou has been already mentioned, 
and the wider form and aim it had got since he first took it in 
hand. It was above a year before the date of these tragedies 
and changes, that he had sent me a Canto, or couple of Cantos, 
of Cccur-de-Lionj loyally again demanding my opinion, harsh 
as it had often been on that side. This time I felt right glad 



220 JOHN STERLING. 

to answer in another tone : " That here was real felicity and 
" ingenuity, on the prescribed conditions; a decisively rhythmic 
" quality in this composition ; thought and phraseology actu- 
" ally dancing, after a sort. What the plan and scope of the 
" Work might be, he had not said, and I could not judge; but 
" here was a light opulence of airy fancy, picturesque concep- 
" tion, vigorous delineation, all marching on as with cheerful 
" drum and fife, if without more rich and complicated forms 
' ' of melody : if a man would write in metre, this sure enough 
" was the way to try doing it." For such encouragement from 
that stinted quarter, Sterling, I doubt not, was very thankful ; 
and of course it might cooperate with the inspirations from his 
Naples Tour to further him a little in this his now chief task 
in the way of Poetry ; a thought which, among my many almost 
pathetic remembrances of contradictions to his Poetic tendency, 
is pleasant for me. 

But, on the whole, it was no matter. With or without en- 
couragement, he was resolute to persevere in Poetry, and did 
persevere. When I think now of his modest, quiet stedfastness 
in this business of Poetry ; how, in spite of friend and foe, he 
silently persisted, without wavering, in the form of utterance 
he had chosen for himself ; and to what length he carried it, 
and vindicated himself against us all, — his character comes 
out in a new light to me, with more of a certain central inflex- 
ibility and noble silent resolution than I had elsewhere noticed 
in it. This summer, moved by natural feelings, which were 
sanctioned, too, and in a sort sanctified to him, by the remem- 
bered counsel of his late Wife, he printed the Tragedy of Straf- 
ford, But there was in the public no contradiction to the hard 
vote I had given about it : the little Book fell dead-born ; and 
Sterling had again to take his disappointment ; — which it must 
be owned he cheerfully did ; and, resolute to try it again and 
ever again, went along with his Cceur-de-Lton, as if the public 
had been all with him. An honourable capacity to stand single 
against the whole world ; such as all men need, from time to 
time ! After all, who knows whether, in his over-clouded, broken, 
flighty way of life, incapable of long hard drudgery, and so shut- 
out from the solid forms oi Prose, this Poetic Form, which he 
could well learn as he could all torms, was not the suitablest 
ior him ? 



VENTNOR: DEATH. 221 

This work of Cceur-de-Lion he prosecuted stedfastly in his 
new home ; and indeed employed on it henceforth all the avail- 
able days that were left him in this world. As was already said, 
he did not live to complete it ; but some eight Cantos, three or 
four of which I know to possess high worth, were finished, before 
Death intervened, and there he had to leave it. Perhaps it will 
yet be given to the public ; and in that case be better received 
than the others were, by men of judgment; and serve to put 
Sterling's Poetic pretensions on a much truer footing. I can 
say, that to readers who do prefer a poetic diet, this ought to 
be welcome: if you can contrive to love the thing which is still 
called "poetry" in these days, here is a decidedly superior article 
in that kind, — richer than one of a hundred that you smilingly 
consume. 

In this same month of June 1 843, while the house at Vent- 
nor was getting ready, Sterling was again in London for a few 
days. Of course at Knightsbridge, now fallen under such sad 
change, many private matters needed to be settled by his Father 
and Brother and him. Captain Anthony, now minded to remove 
with his family to London and quit the military way of life, had 
agreed to purchase the big family house, which he still occupies ; 
the old man, now rid of that encumbrance, retired to a smaller 
establishment of his own ; — came ultimately to be Anthony's 
guest, and spent his last days so. He was much lamed and 
broken, the half of his old life suddenly torn away; — and other 
losses, which he yet knew not of, lay close ahead of him. 
In a year or two, the rugged old man, borne down by these 
pressures, quite gave way ; sank into paralytic and other in- 
firmities ; and was released from life's sorrows, under his son 
Anthony's roof, in the fall of 1847. — The house in Knights- 
bridge was, at the time we now speak of, empty except of 
servants ; Anthony having returned to Dublin, I suppose to 
conclude his affairs there, prior to removal. John lodged in a 
Hotel. 

We had our fair share of his company in this visit, as in 
all the past ones ; but the intercourse, I recollect, was dim and 
broken, a disastrous shadow hanging over it, not to be cleared 
away by effort. Two American gentlemen, acquaintances also 
of mine, had been recommended to him, by Emerson most likely : 
one morning Sterling appeared here with a strenuous proposal 



222 JOHN STERLING. 

that we should come to Knightsbridge, and dine with him and 
them. Objections, general dissuasions were not wanting: The 
empty dark house, such needless trouble, and the like ; — but he 
answered in his quizzing way, "Nature herself prompts you, 
" when a stranger comes, to give him a dinner. There are ser- 
" vants yonder ; it is all easy ; come ; both of you are bound 
" to come." And accordingly we went. I remember it as 
one of the saddest dinners ; though Sterling talked copiously, 
and our friends, Theodore Parker one of them, were pleasant 
and distinguished men. All was so haggard in one's memory, 
and half-consciously in one's anticipations ; sad, as if one had 
been dining in a ruin, in the crypt of a mausoleum. Our con- 
versation was waste and logical, I forget quite on what, not joy- 
ful and harmoniously effusive : Sterling's silent sadness was 
painfully apparent through the bright mask he had bound him- 
self to wear. Withal one could notice now, as on his last visit, 
a certain sternness of mood, unknown in better days ; as if 
strange gorgon-faces of earnest Destiny were more and more 
rising round him, and the time for sport were passed. He looked 
always hurried, abrupt, even beyond wont ; and indeed was, I 
suppose, overwhelmed in details of business. 

One evening, I remember, he came down hither, designing 
to have a freer talk with us. We were all sad enough ; and 
strove rather to avoid speaking of what might make us sadder. 
Before any true talk had been got into, an interruption occurred, 
some unwelcome arrival ; Sterling abruptly rose ; gave me the 
signal to rise ; and we unpolitely walked away, adjourning to his 
Hotel, which I recollect was in the Strand, near Hungerford 
Market ; some ancient comfortable quaint-looking place, off the 
street ; where, in a good warm queer old room, the remainder 
of our colloquy was duly finished. We spoke of Cromwell, among 
other things which I have now forgotten ; on which subject 
Sterling was trenchant, positive, and in some essential points 
wrong, — as I said I would convince him some day. "Well, 
well !" answered he, with a shake of the head. — We parted be- 
fore long ; bed-time for invalids being come : he escorted me 
down certain carpeted backstairs, and would not be forbidden : 
we took leave under the dim skies ; — and alas, little as I then 
dreamt of it, this, so far as I can calculate, must have been the 
last time I ever saw him in the world. Softly as a common 



VENTNOR : DEATH. 223 

evening, the last of the evenings had passed away, and no other 
would come for me forevermore. 

Through the summer he was occupied with fitting-up his new 
residence, selecting governesses, servants ; earnestly endeavour- 
ing to set his house in order, on the new footing it had now 
assumed. Extensive improvements in his garden and grounds, 
in which he took due interest to the last, were also going on. 
His Brother, and Mr. Maurice his brother-in-law, — especially 
Mrs. Maurice the kind sister, faithfully endeavouring to be as 
a mother to her poor little nieces, — were occasionally with him. 
All hours available for labour on his literary tasks, he employed, 
almost exclusively I believe, on Coeur-de-Lion; with what 
energy, the progress he had made in that Work, and in the art 
of Poetic composition generally, amid so many sore impedi- 
ments, best testifies. I perceive, his life in general lay heavier 
on him than it had done before ; his mood of mind is grown 
more sombre ; — indeed the very solitude of this Ventnor as a 
place, not to speak of other solitudes, must have been new and 
depressing. But he 'admits no hypochondria, now or ever ; occa- 
sionally, though rarely, even flashes of a kind of wild gaiety 
break through. He works steadily at his task, with all the 
strength left him ; endures the past as he may ; and makes gal- 
lant front against the world. ' I am going on quietly here, rather 
' than happily,' writes he to his friend Newman ; 'sometimes 
' quite helpless, not from distinct illness, but from sad thoughts 
' and a ghastly dreaminess. The heart is gone out of my life. 
' My children, however, are doing well ; and the place is cheer- 
' ful and mild.' 

From Letters of this period I might select some melancholy 
enough ; but will prefer to give the following one (nearly the 
last I can give), as indicative of a less usual temper : 

' To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London. 

' Ventnor, 7th December 1843. 
* My dear Carlyle, — My Irish Newspaper was not meant 
' as a hint that I wanted a Letter. It contained an absurd long 
' Advertisement, — some project for regenerating human know- 
' ledge, &c. &c. ; to which I prefixed my private mark (a blot), 
' thinking that you might be pleased to know of a fellow-la- 
' bourer somewhere in Tipperary. 



224 JOHN STERLING. 

' Your Letter, like the Scriptural oil, — (they had no patent 
' lamps then, and used the best oil, ys. per gallon), — has made 
' my face to shine. There is but one person in the world, I 
' shall not tell you who, from whom a Letter would give me so 
' much pleasure. It would be nearly as good at Pekin, in the 
' centre of the most enlightened Mandarins ; but here at Vent- 
' nor, where there are few Mandarins and no enlightenment, — 
' fountains in the wilderness, even were they miraculous, are 
' nothing compared with your handwriting. Yet it is sad that 
' you should be so melancholy. I often think that though Mcr- 
' cury was the pleasanter fellow, and probably the happier, Sa- 
' turn was the greater god ; — rather cannibal or so, but one 
' excuses it in him, as in some other heroes one knows of. 

' It is, as you say, your destiny to write about Cromwell : 
' and you will make a book of him, at which the ears of our 
1 grandchildren will tingle ; — and as one may hope that the ears 
' of human nature will be growing longer and longer, the ting- 
' ling will be proportionably greater than we are accustomed to. 
' Do what you can, I fear there will be little gain from the Roy- 

• alists. There is something very small about the biggest of them 
' that I have ever fallen in with, unless you count old Hobbes 
' a Royalist. 

' Curious to see that you have them exactly preserved in the 
' Country Gentlemen of our day ; while of the Puritans not a 

• trace remains except in History. Squirism had already, in that 

• day, become the caput mortuum that it is now ; and has 

• therefore, like other mummies, been able to last. What was 
' opposed to it was the Life of Puritanism, — then on the point 
' of disappearing ; and it too has left its mummy at Exeter Hall 
' on the platform and elsewhere. One must go back to the 
' Middle Ages to see Squirism as rampant and vivacious as 
' Biblicism was in the Seventeenth Century : and I suppose our 
' modern Country Gentlemen are about as near to what the old 
' Knights and Barons were who fought the Crusades, as our 

• modern Evangelicals to the fellows who sought the Lord by 

• the light of their own pistol-shots. 

' Those same Crusades are now pleasant matter for me. 
' You remember, or perhaps you do not, a thing I once sent you 
' about Cceur-de-Lion. Long since, I settled to make the Cantos 
« you saw part of a larger Book ; and worked at it, last autumn 



VENTNOR: DEATH. 225 

' and winter, till I had a bad illness. I am now at work on it 
' again ; and go full sail, like ?ny hero. There are six Cantos 
' done, roughly, besides what you saw. I have struck-out most 
' of the absurdest couplets, and given the whole a higher though 
' still sportive tone. It is becoming a kind of Odyssey, with a 
' laughing and Christian Achilles for hero. One may matoage 
' to wrap, in that chivalrous brocade, many things belonging to 
' our Time, and capable of interesting it. The thing is not bad ; 
' but will require great labour. Only it is labour that I thor- 
' oughly like ; and which keeps the maggots out of one's brain, 
' until their time. 

■ I have never spoken to you, never been able to speak to 
' you, of the change in my life, — almost as great, one fancies, 
' as one's own death. Even now, although it seems as if I had 
' so much to say, I cannot. If one could imagine' — * * * 'But 
' it is no use ; I cannot write wisely on this matter. I suppose 
' no human being was ever devoted to another more entirely 
'than she; — and that makes the change not less but more 
' bearable. It seems as if she could not be gone quite ; and that 
' indeed is my faith. 

' Mr. James, your New-England friend, was here only for a 
' few days ; I saw him several times, and liked him. They went, 
' on the 24th of last month, back to London, — or so purposed, 
' — because there is no pavement here for him to walk on. I 
1 want to know where he is, and thought I should be able to 
' learn from you. I gave him a Note for Mill, who perhaps may 
' have seen him. I think this is all at present from, — Yours, 

'John Sterling.' 

Of his health, all this while, we had heard little definite; 
and understood that he was very quiet and careful ; in virtue of 
which grand improvement we vaguely considered all others 
would follow. Once let him learn well to be slow as the common 
run of men are, would not all be safe and well? Nor through the 
winter, or the cold spring months, did bad news reach us; per- 
haps less news of any kind than had been usual, which seemed 
to indicate a still and wholesome way of life and work. Not till 
'April 4th, 1844,' did the new alarm occur: again on some 
slight accident, the breaking of a bloodvessel; again prostration 
under dangerous sickness, from which this time he never rose. 



226 JOHN STERLING. 

There had been so many sudden fallings and happy risings 
again in our poor Sterling's late course of health, we had grown 
so accustomed to mingle blame of his impetuosity with pity for 
his sad overthrows, we did not for many weeks quite realise to 
ourselves the stern fact that here at length had the peculiar fall 
come upon us, — the last of all these falls ! This brittle life, 
which had so often held together and victoriously rallied under 
pressures and collisions, could not rally always, and must one 
time be shivered. It was not till the summer came and no im- 
provement ; and not even then without lingering glimmers of 
hope against hope, that I fairly had to own what had now come, 
what was now day by day sternly advancing with the steadiness 
of Time. 

From the first, the doctors spoke despondently ; and Ster- 
ling himself felt well that there was no longer any chance of life. 
He had often said so, in his former illnesses, and thought so, yet 
always till now with some tacit grain of counter-hope ; he had 
never clearly felt so as now : Here is the end ; the great change 
is now here ! — Seeing how it was, then, he earnestly gathered 
all his strength to do this last act of his tragedy, as he had 
striven to do the others, in a pious and manful manner. As I 
believe we can say he did ; few men in any time more piously 
or manfully. For about six months he sat looking stedfastly, 
at all moments, into the eyes of Death ; he too who had eyes to 
see Death and the Terrors and Eternities ; and surely it was 
with perfect courage and piety, and valiant simplicity of heart, 
that he bore himself, and did and thought and suffered, in this 
trying predicament, more terrible than the usual death of men. 
All strength left to him he still employed in working : day by 
day the end came nearer, but day by day also some new por- 
tion of his adjustments was completed, by some small stage his 
task was nearer done. His domestic and other affairs, of all 
sorts, he settled to the last item. Of his own Papers he saved 
a few, giving brief pertinent directions about them ; great quan- 
tities, among which a certain Autobiography begun some years 
ago at Clifton, he ruthlessly burnt, judging that the best. To 
his friends he left messages, memorials of books : I have a 
Gouglis Camden, and other relics, which came to me in that 
way, and are among my sacred possessions. The very Letters 
of his friends he sorted and returned ; had each friend's Letters 



VENTNOR: DEATH. 227 

made into a packet, sealed with black, and duly addressed for 
delivery when the time should come. 

At an early period of his illness, all visitors had of course 
been excluded, except his most intimate ones : before long, so 
soon as the end became apparent, he took leave even of his 
Father, to avoid excitements and intolerable emotions ; and 
except his Brother and the JVtaurices, who were generally about 
him coming and going, none were admitted. This latter form 
of life, I think, continued for above three months. Men were 
still working about his grounds, of whom he took some charge; 
needful works, great and small, let them not pause on account 
of him. He still rose from bed ; had still some portion of his 
day which he could spend in his Library. Besides business 
there, he read a good deal, — earnest books ; the Bible, most 
earnest of books, his chief favourite. He still even wrote a 
good deal. To his eldest Boy, now Mr. Newman's ward, who 
had been removed to the Maurices' since the beginning of this 
illness, he addressed, every day or two, sometimes daily, for eight 
or nine weeks, a Letter, of general paternal advice and exhor- 
tation ; interspersing sparingly, now and then, such notices of 
his own feelings and condition as could be addressed to a boy. 
These Letters I have lately read : they give, beyond any he has 
written, a noble image of the intrinsic Sterling ; — the same face 
we had long known ; but painted now as on the azure of Eter- 
nity, serene, victorious, divinely sad; the dusts and extraneous 
disfigurements imprinted on it by the world, now washed away. 
One little Excerpt, not the best, but the fittest for its neigh- 
bourhood here, will be welcome to the reader : 

' To Master Edivci7'd C. Sterling, London. 

' Hillside, Ventnor, 29th June 1844. 
' My dear Boy, — We have been going on here as quietly 
' as possible, with no event that I know of. There is nothing 
' except books to occupy me. But you may suppose that my 
' thoughts often move towards you, and that I fancy what you 
' may be doing in the great City, — the greatest on the Earth, 
' — where I spent so many years of my life. I first saw Lon- 
1 don when I was between eight and nine years old, and then 
' lived in or near it for the whole of the next ten, and more 
' there than anywhere else for seven years longer. Since then 



228 JOHN STERLING. 

' I have hardly ever been a year without seeing the place, and 
' have often lived in it for a considerable time. There I grew 
' from childhood to be a man. My little Brothers and Sisters, 
' and since, my Mother, died and are buried there. There I 
' rir st saw your Mamma, and was there married. It seems as 
' if, in some strange way, London were a part of Me or I of 

* London. I think of it often, not as full of noise and dust and 
' confusion, but as something silent, grand and everlasting. 

' When I fancy how you are walking in the same streets, 
' and moving along the same river, that I used to watch so 
' intently, as if in a dream, when younger than you are, — I 
■ could gladly burst into tears, not of grief, but with a feeling 
' that there is no name for. Everything is so wonderful, great 
' and holy, so sad and yet not bitter, so full of Death and so 
' bordering on Heaven. Can you understand anything of this ? 
' If you can, you will begin to know what a serious matter our 
' Life is ; how unworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away with- 
1 out heed ; what a wretched, insignificant, worthless creature 

• any one comes to be, who does not as soon as possible bend 
' his whole strength, as in stringing a stiff bow, to doing what- 
' ever task lies first before him.' * * '■' 

' We have a mist here today from the sea. It reminds me 
1 of that which I used to see from my house in St. Vincent, 
' rolling over the great volcano and the mountains round it. I 
' used to look at it from our windows with your Mamma, and 
' you a little baby in her arms. 

• This Letter is not so well written as I could wish, but I 
' hope you will be able to read it. — Your affectionate Papa, 

' John Sterling.' 

These Letters go from June 9th to August 2d, at which 
latter date vacation-time arrived, and the Boy returned to him. 
The Letters are preserved ; and surely well worth preserving. 

In this manner he wore the slow doomed months away. 
Day after day his little period of Library went on waning, 
shrinking into less and less ; but I think it never altogether 
ended till the general end came. — For courage, for active 
audacity we had all known Sterling; but such a fund of mild 
stoicism, of devout patience and heroic composure, we did not 
hitherto know in him. His sufferings, his sorrows, all his un- 



VENXNOR: DEATH. 229 

utterabilities in this slow agony, he held right manfully down ; 
marched loyally, as at the bidding of the Eternal, into the dread 
Kingdoms, and no voice of weakness was heard from him. 
Poor noble Sterling, he had struggled so high and gained so 
little here ! But this also he did gain, to be a brave man ; and 
it was much. 

Summer passed into Autumn: Sterling's earthly businesses, 
to the last detail of them, were now all as good as done ; his 
strength too was wearing to its end, his daily turn in the Library 
shrunk now to a span. He had to hold himself as if in readi- 
ness for the great voyage at any moment. One other Letter I 
must give ; not quite the last message I had from Sterling, but 
the last that can be inserted here : a brief Letter, fit to be for- 
ever memorable to the receiver of it : 

' To Thomas Carlyle, Esq., Chelsea, London. 

' Hillside, Ventnor, loth August 1844. 
• My dear Carlyle, — For the first time for many months 

• it seems possible to send you a few words ; merely, however, 

• for Remembrance and Farewell. On higher matters there 
1 is nothing to say. I tread the common road into the great 
' darkness, without any thought of fear, and with very much of 
' hope. Certainty indeed I have none. With regard to You 
' and Me I cannot begin to write ; having nothing for it but to 
' keep shut the lid of those secrets with all the iron weights 
' that are in my power. Towards me it is still more true than 

• towards England that no man has been and clone like you. 

• Heaven bless you ! If I can lend a hand when there, that 
' will not be wanting. It is all very strange, but not one hun- 

• dredth part so sad as it seems to the standers-by. 

' Your Wife knows my mind towards her, and will believe 
' it without asseverations. — Yours to the last, 

' John Sterling.' 

It was a bright Sunday morning when this letter came to 
me : if in the great Cathedral of Immensity I did no worship 
that day, the fault surely was my own. Sterling affectionately 
refused to see me ; which also was kind and wise. And four 
days before his death, there are some * stanzas of verse for me, 



230 JOHN STERLING. 

written as if in star-fire and immortal tears ; which are among 
my sacred possessions, to be kept for myself alone. 

His business with the world was done ; the one business 
now to await silently what may lie in other grander worlds. 
" God is great," he was wont to say : " God is great." The 
Maurices were now constantly near him ; Mrs. Maurice assidu- 
ously watching over him. On the evening of Wednesday the 
i 8th of September, his Brother, as he did every two or three 
days, came down ; found him in the old temper, weak in strength 
but not very sensibly weaker ; they talked calmly together for 
an hour ; then Anthony left his bedside, and retired for the 
night, not expecting any change. But suddenly, about eleven 
o'clock, there came a summons and alarm : hurrying to his 
Brother's room, he found his Brother dying ; and in a short 
while more the faint last struggle was ended, and all those 
struggles and strenuous often -foiled endeavours of eight-and- 
thirty years lay hushed in death. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONCLUSION. 

Sterling was of rather slim but well-boned wiry figure, 
perhaps an inch or two from six feet in height ; of blonde com- 
plexion, without colour, yet not pale or sickly ; dark-blonde hair, 
copious enough, which he usually wore short. The general 
aspect of him indicated freedom, perfect spontaneity, with a 
certain careless natural grace. In his apparel, you could notice, 
he affected dim colours, easy shapes ; cleanly always, yet even 
in this not fastidious or conspicuous : he sat or stood, oftenest, 
in loose sloping postures ; walked with long strides, body care- 
lessly bent, head flung eagerly forward, right hand perhaps 
grasping a cane, and rather by the middle to swing it, than by 
the end to use it otherwise. An attitude of frank, cheerful 
impetuosity, of hopeful speed and alacrity ; which indeed his 
physiognomy, on all sides of it, offered as the chief expression. 
Alacrity, velocity, joyous ardour, dwelt in the eyes too, which 
were of brownish gray, full of bright kindly life, rapid and frank 
rather than deep or strong. A smile, half of kindly impatience, 
half of real mirth, often? sat on his face. The head was long ; 



CONCLUSION. 231 

high over the vertex ; in the brow, of fair breadth, but not high 
for such a man. 

In the voice, which was of good tenor sort, rapid and strik- 
ingly distinct, powerful too, and except in some of the higher 
notes harmonious, there was a clear -ringing metallic tone, — 
which I often thought was wonderfully physiognomic. A certain 
splendour, beautiful, but not the deepest or the softest, which 
I could call a splendour as of burnished metal, — fiery valour of 
heart, swift decisive insight and utterance, then a turn for bril- 
liant elegance, also for ostentation, rashness, &c. &c, — in short, 
a flash as of clear-glancing sharp-cutting steel, lay in the whole 
nature of the man, in his heart and in his intellect, marking 
alike the excellence and the limits of them both. His laugh, 
which on light occasions was ready and frequent, had in it no 
great depth of gaiety, or sense for the ludicrous in men or things ; 
you might call it rather a good smile become vocal than a deep 
real laugh : with his whole man I never saw him laugh. A 
clear sense of the humorous he had, as of most other things ; 
but in himself little or no true humour ; — nor did he attempt that 
side of things. To call him deficient in sympathy would seem 
strange, him whose radiances and resonances went thrilling over 
all the world, and kept him in brotherly contact with all : but 
I may say his sympathies dwelt rather with the high and sub- 
lime than with the low or ludicrous ; and were, in any field, 
rather light, wide and lively, than deep, abiding or great. 

There is no Portrait of him which tolerably resembles. The 
miniature Medallion, of which Mr. Hare has given an Engrav- 
ing, offers us, with no great truth in physical details, one, and 
not the best, superficial expression of his face, as if that with 
vacuity had been what the face contained ; and even that Mr. 
Hare's engraver has disfigured into the nearly or the utterly 
irrecognisable. Two Pencil-sketches, which no artist could ap- 
prove of, hasty sketches done in some social hour, one by his 
friend Spedding, one by Baynim the Novelist, whom he slightly 
knew and had. been kind to, tell a much truer story so far as 
they go : of these his Brother has engravings ; but these also 
I must suppress as inadequate for strangers. 

Nor in the way of Spiritual Portraiture does there, after so 
much writing and excerpting, anything of importance remain 



232 JOHN STERLING. 

for me to say. John Sterling and his Life in this world were — 
such as has been already said. In purity of character, in the 
so-called moralities, in all manner of proprieties of conduct, so 
as tea-tables and other human tribunals rule them, he might be 
defined as perfect, according to the world's pattern : in these 
outward tangible respects the world's criticism of him must have 
been praise and that only. An honourable man, and good 
citizen ; discharging, with unblamable correctness, all functions 
and duties laid on him by the customs (mores) of the society he 
lived in, — with correctness and something more. In all these 
particulars, a man perfectly moral, or of approved virtue accord- 
ing to the rules. 

Nay in the far more essential tacit virtues, which are not 
marked on stone tables, or so apt to be insisted on by human 
creatures over tea or elsewhere, — in clear and perfect fidelity to 
Truth wherever found, in childlike and soldierlike, pious and 
valiant loyalty to the Highest, and what of good and evil that 
might send him, — he excelled among good men. The joys and 
the sorrows of his lot he took with true simplicity and acquies- 
cence. Like a true son, not like a miserable mutinous rebel, 
he comported himself in this Universe. Extremity of distress, 
— and surely his jervid temper had enough of contradiction in 
this world, — could not tempt him into impatience at any time. 
By no chance did you ever hear from him a whisper of those 
mean repinings, miserable arraignings and questionings of the 
Eternal Power, such as weak souls even well disposed will some- 
times give way to in the pressure of thei* despair; to the like of 
this he never yielded, or showed the least tendency to yield ; — 
which surely was well on his part. For the Eternal Power, I 
still remark, will not answer the like of this, but silently and 
terribly accounts it impious, blasphemous and damnable, and 
now as heretofore will visit it as such. Not a rebel but a son, 
I said ; willing to suffer when Heaven said, Thou shalt ; — and 
withal, what is perhaps rarer in such a combination, willing to 
rejoice also, and right cheerily taking the good. that was sent, 
whensoever or in whatever form it came. 

A pious soul we may justly call him ; devoutly submissive 
to the will of the Supreme in all things : the highest and sole 
essential form which Religion can assume in man, and without 
which all forms of religion are a mockery and a delusion in man. 



CONCLUSION. 233 

Doubtless, in so clear and filial a heart there must have dwelt 
the perennial feeling of silent worship ; which silent feeling, as 
we have seen, he was eager enough to express by all good ways 
of utterance ; zealously adopting such appointed forms and creeds 
as the Dignitaries of the World had fixed upon and solemnly 
named recommendable • prostrating his heart in such Church, 
by such accredited rituals and seemingly fit or half-fit methods, 
as his poor time and country had to offer him, — not rejecting 
the said methods till they stood convicted of palpable ?//z&tness, 
and then doing it right gently withal, rather letting them drop 
as pitiably dead for him, than angrily hurling them out of doors 
as needing to be killed. By few Englishmen of his epoch had 
the thing called Church of England been more loyally appealed 
to as a spiritual mother. 

And yet, as I said before, it may be questioned whether 
piety, what we call devotion or worship, was the principle 
deepest in him. In spite of his Coleridge discipleship, and his 
once headlong operations following thereon, I used to judge that 
his piety was prompt and pure rather than great or intense ; 
that, on the whole, religious devotion was not the deepest ele- 
ment of him. His reverence was ardent and just, ever ready 
for the thing or man that deserved revering, or seemed to de- 
serve it : but he was of too joyful, light and hoping a nature to 
go to the depths of that feeling, much more to dwell perennially 
in it. He had no fear in his composition ; terror and awe did 
not blend with his respect of anything. In no scene or epoch 
could he have been a Church Saint, a fanatic enthusiast, or 
have worn-out his life in passive martyrdom, sitting patient in 
his grim coal-mine, looking at the ' three ells' of Heaven high 
overhead there. In sorrow he would not dwell ; all sorrow he 
swiftly subdued, and shook away from hkn. How could you 
have made an Indian Fakeer of the Greek Apollo, * whose 
bright eye lends brightness, and never yet saw a shadow' ? — I 
should say, not religious reverence, rather artistic admiration 
was the essential character of him : a fact connected with all 
other facts in the physiognomy of his life and self, and giving 
a tragic enough character to much of the history he had 
among us. 

Poor Sterling, he was by nature appointed for a Poet, then, 
— a Poet after his sort, or recogniser and delineator of the Beau- 



234 JOHN STERLING. 

tiful ; and not for a Priest at all ? Striving towards the sunny 
heights, out of such a level and through such an element as ours 
in these days is, he had strange aberrations appointed him, 
and painful wanderings amid the miserable gas-lights, bog-fires, 
dancing meteors and putrid phosphorescences which form the 
guidance of a young human soul at present ! Not till after trying 
all manner of sublimely illuminated places, and finding that the 
basis of them was putridity, artificial gas and quaking bog, did 
he, when his strength was all done, discover his true sacred hill, 
and passionately climb thither while life was fast ebbing ! — A 
tragic history, as all histories are ; yet a gallant, brave and 
noble one, as not many are. It is what, to a radiant son of the 
Muses, and bright messenger of the harmonious Wisdoms, this 
poor world, — if he himself have not strength enough, and 
inertia enough, and amid his harmonious eloquences silence 
enough, — has provided at present. Many a high-striving, too- 
hasty soul, seeking guidance towards eternal excellence from 
the official Black-artists, and successful Professors of political, 
ecclesiastical, philosophical, commercial, general and particular 
Legerdemain, will recognise his own history in this image of 
a fellow-pilgrim's. 

Over-haste was Sterling's continual fault ; over-haste, and 
want of the due strength, — alas, mere want of the due inertia 
chiefly; which is so common a gift for most part ; and proves 
so inexorably needful withal ! But he was good and generous 
and true ; joyful where there was joy, patient and silent where 
endurance was required of him ; shook innumerable sorrows, 
and thick-crowding forms of pain, gallantly away from him ; 
fared frankly forward, and with scrupulous care to tread on no 
one's toes. True, above all, one may call him ; a man of perfect 
veracity in thought, word and deed. Integrity towards all men, 
— nay integrity had ripened with him into chivalrous generosity ; 
there was no guile or baseness anywhere found in him. Trans- 
parent as crystal ; he could not hide anything sinister, if such 
there had been to hide. A more perfectly transparent soul I 
have never known. It was beautiful, to read all those interior 
movements ; the little shades of affectations, ostentations ; tran- 
sient spurts of anger, which never grew to the length of settled 
spleen : all so naive, so childlike, the very faults grew beautiful 
to you. 



CONCLUSION. 235 

And so he played his part among us, and has now ended it : 
in this first half of the Nineteenth Century, such was the shape 
of human destinies the world and he made out between them. 
He sleeps now, in the little burying - ground of Bonchurch ; 
bright, ever-young in the memory of others that must grow old ; 
and was honourably released from his toils before the hottest of 
the day. 

All that remains, in palpable shape, of John Sterling's acti- 
vities in this world are those Two poor Volumes ; scattered 
fragments gathered from the general waste of forgotten ephemera 
by the piety of a friend : an inconsiderable memorial ; not pre- 
tending to have achieved greatness ; only disclosing, mournfully, 
to the more observant, that a promise of greatness was there. 
Like other such lives, like all lives, this is a tragedy ; high hopes, 
noble efforts ; under thickening difficulties and impediments, 
ever-new nobleness of valiant effort ; — and the result death, with 
conquests by no means corresponding. A life which cannot 
challenge the world's attention ; yet. which does modestly solicit 
it, and perhaps on clear study will be found to reward it. 

On good evidence let the world understand that here was a 
remarkable soul born into it ; who, more than others, sensible 
to its influences, took intensely into him such tint and shape of 
feature as the world had to offer there and then ; fashioning 
himself eagerly by whatsoever of noble presented itself; partici- 
pating ardently in the world's battle, and suffering deeply in its 
bewilderments ; — whose Life-pilgrimage accordingly is an em- 
blem, unusually significant, of the world's own during those 
years of his. A man of infinite susceptivity ; who caught every- 
where, more than others, the colour of the element he lived in, 
the infection of all that was or appeared honourable, beautiful 
and manful in the tendencies of his Time ; — -whose history there- 
fore is, beyond others, emblematic of that of his Time. 

In Sterling's Writings and Actions, were they capable of 
being well read, we consider that there is for all true hearts, and 
especially for young noble seekers, and strivers towards what is 
highest, a mirror in which some shadow of themselves and of 
their immeasurably complex arena will profitably present itself. 
Here also is one encompassed and struggling even as they now 
are. This man also had said to himself, not in mere Catechism- 



236 JOHN STERLING. 

words, but with all his instincts, and the question thrilled in 
every nerve of him, and pulsed in every drop of his blood : 
" What is the chief end of man ? Behold, I too would live and 
" work as beseems a denizen of this Universe, a child of the 
" Highest God. By what means is a noble life still possible for 
" me here? Ye Heavens and thou Earth, oh, how?" — The 
history of this long-continued prayer and endeavour, lasting in 
various figures for near forty years, may now and for some time 
coming have something to say to men ! 

Nay, what of men or of the world? Here, visible to myself, 
for some while, was a brilliant human presence, distinguishable, 
honourable and lovable amid the dim common populations ; 
among the million little beautiful, once more a beautiful human 
soul : whom I, among others, recognised and lovingly walked 
with, while the years and the hours were. Sitting now by his 
tomb in thoughtful mood, the new times bring a new duty for 
me. 'Why write the Life of Sterling?' I imagine I had a com- 
mission higher than the world's, the dictate of Nature herself, 
to do what is now done. Sic prosit. 



SUMMARY. 



PART I. 

Chap. I. Introduction. 

Sterling's character and writings, how bequeathed. Mr. Hare's estim- 
able but insufficient Biography. How happy to be unknown, rather than 
misknown : This no longer possible for Sterling, (p. i.) — His beautiful 
manly character : No sceptic, always believing, prompt and clear. In his 
religious struggles an emblem of his time, and herald of victory to all good 
men. . A true portrait of the least man unspeakably instructive even to the 
greatest. (5.) 

Chap. II. Birth and Parentage. 

Born m the Isle of Bute. A grave question. Early environment. Ster- 
ling's Father. A bit of genealogy, (p. 7.) — His Grandfather. His Father's 
Irish form of character : Trained for the Bar : Enters the Army. Marriage. 
Sterling's Mother: Her delicate beautiful nature. (9.) — Their money-pro- 
spects. Birth of first son. Gentleman farmer. Birth of John Sterling, (n.) 

Chap. III. Schools: LlanbletJiian j Paris; London. 

His Father's restless striving. Removes to Wales. Scenic influences. 
Vale of Glamorgan. Welsh villages. Llanblethian. (p. 12.) — Sterling's 
home and boyhood. His Father's Promethean struggles. Letters of Vet us: 
Connexion with the Times. (15.) — Peace of 1814 : Removes to Paris. 
Change of scene for young Sterling : Appointed and unappointed school- 
ings. Napoleon from Elba : The Sterling household drifted home again. 
Finally settles in London. Domestic tragedies. (21.) — Sterling a headlong 
boy of twelve : Runs away : Letter to his Mother. His Mother's household 
sorrows. (25.) 



238 SUMMARY. 



Chap. IV. Universities : Glasgow j Cambridge. 

Sterling's school and other acquirements. One year at Glasgow. His 
brother Anthony. His Father's improving position, (p. 26.)— Cambridge : 
Mr. Hare's friendly eulogium. Quenching a fire. Not an exact scholar. 
Practical but impetuous turn of mind. A deeper than scholastic discipline. 
(28.) — University life and companionship. Black dragoons : Spiritual Radi- 
calism. (31.) 

Chap. V. A Profession. 

What will he do ? A mad world. What noble life possible ? (p. 33.)— 
Speciosity instead of performance. Sterling's own shortcomings : Brilliant 
nomadic ways: No wise discipline for him. A better time. (35.) — His 
ready utterance, and quick clear logic. Secretaryship. A parliamentary 
career negatived. Pulmonary and other symptoms. No man can reach his 
ideal life. (36.) 

Chap. VI. Literature : The Athenceum. 

Sterling's equipment. Literature too often a consuming fire. The 
Athenaeum: Frederick Maurice and he: A literary voyage, (p. 38.) — 
High aim and promise of Sterling's imperfect efforts. His ' period of dark- 
ness.' (39.) 

Chap. VII. Regent Street. 

The Athenaeum not successful. Sterling's literary life. His Father's 
house. The Saint-Simonian Portent. He visits Coleridge, (p. 40.)— Mrs. 
Puller's death. Letter to his Brother : Fanny Kemble. (42.) — Toryism : 
Radical Reform. Down with Imposture. The Church without relation to 
him : Doom inevitable. A hundred Knights against all comers. Message 
of Heaven. (44). 

Chap. VIII. Coleridge. 

Coleridge's Magus-prophet character. A last hope for a dead Church. 
Mr. Oilman's house at Highgate : A charming outlook, (p. 46.) — Cole- 
ridge, a heavy-laden, high-aspiring, much-suffering man. Sterling assidu- 
ously attended him : Their first colloquy. Coleridge's Talk : Wide-spread 
irresolution, subtle insight, pious aimlessness : A very dreary feeling. Sim- 
plicity and pious truth. (47.) — Dead Churches : A dead, sunken World : 
Astral Spirit, done by Alchemy. Ingenuous young minds. (51.) — Truth 
and fatal untruth. Infidelity unconquered. The higher the man, the 
harder and heavier his tasks. To steal into Heaven, by whatever method, 
is forever forbidden : To all Heaven-scaling Ixions the just gods are very 
stern. (52.) 



SUMMARY. 239 



Chap. IX. Spanish Exiles, 

Sterling's Coleridgean fermentations. Novel of Arthur Coningsby. 
The Barton family : Susannah Barton : Sterling's interest in them and 
her. Democratic Radicalism not given up yet. (p. 54.)— Spanish Political 
Refugees : The one safe coast : The Revolutionary Horologe. General 
Torrijos. (56.) 

Chap. X. Torrijos. 

Reception in England. Madam Torrijos and Mrs. Sterling. Romantic 
Spain. Torrijos and his fellow Refugees : Sterling's zealous assistance : 
That of the Bartons and other friends, (p. 57.) — Mouldering into nothing- 
ness : Death in battle better. A terrible chance worth trying. Robert 
Boyd and General Torrijos. A ship manned : Sterling and others volun- 
teer : Letter to Charles Barton: Busy weeks. Doubts. (59.) — All is ready. 
Tender farewell becomes unexpected greeting : Sterling and Miss Barton : 
An offer accepted. Sterling to remain in England. Down to Deal : Thames 
Police: The plot discovered. Sterling's presence of mind. (63.) 



Chap. XI. Marriage : Ill-health j West-Indies. 

Sterling's dubious outlooks : Not despondent. Torrijos and his fellow- 
adventurers. Sterling's Marriage : His kindly true-hearted Wife. A dan- 
gerous illness, (p. 64.) — West-Indian estate bequeathed : A visit may im- 
prove the property, and his own health. New hopes and impetuosities. 
Sets sail for St. Vincent. (66.) 



Chap. XII. Island of St. Vincent. 

An interesting Isle. Sterling's new manner of life. Slaves unfit for 
freedom. Letter to his Mother : A West-Indian tornado : Plouse half blown 
down : His own and Wife's perilous position : Courageous devotion of his 
Negroes: Ruin in Barbadoes. (p. 67.)— Goethe's last birthday. Their first 
child. Reminiscences. (74.) 



Chap. XIII. A Catastrophe. 

A more fatal hurricane for poor Sterling. News of Torrijos and cousin 
Boyd: Total failure of their Spanish adventure. Surrender at discretion, 
and Military execution. Poor Boyd. Madam Torrijos a widow, (p. 75.) 
— Sterling's passionate remorse. (78.) 



240 SUMMARY 



Chap. XIV. Pause. 

Lifelong sorrow and repentance. Higher wants and nobler insights : 
Coleridge's prophetic moonshine, (p. 78.) — Old Radicalism and new mis- 
taken Piety. Struggles of poor Sterling. Refuge of Philanthropism. Con- 
scions and unconscious realities. (80. ) 



Chap. XV. Boniij Hcrstmouceitx. 

Sterling returns to England. Crosses to Germany. Arthur Coningsby 
published : Better things to be looked for. A gleam of sunshine in a heathy 
wilderness. The Rev. Julius Hare : Sterling looks wistfully to the Church : 
Takes the veil. (p. 81.) — His life a fermenting chaos : No fixed highway to 
the Eternal : A tragic pilgrimage. Sterling's most rash and unpermitted 
step : God's truth shall not be wedded with impunity to the Devil's untruth. 
The delirious Time has done its worst : Speedy misgivings, and lifelong 
struggle to be free of it. (84. ) 



PART II. 
Chap. I. Curate. 



Fervent priestly activities while they could last : Christian Paul and 
Christian Sterling. Mr. Hare's testimony to his earnest sincerity and affec- 
tionate worth. Gratefully remembered by the poor. (p. 87.)— Carlyle's first 
interview with Sterling's Father A Times writer. Contrasts and family 
likenesses. (89.) 

Chap. II. Not Curate. 

Gathering clouds. Plis goal not there. Conscious and unconscious 
causes : Childlike self-deception : Pulmonary ailments. In the Church 
eight months in all. To follow illusions till they burst. The history of 
Sterling a symbol of his time. "What is incredible to the soul can be before 
God but a lie in the mouth, (p. 90.) — Carlyle first sees Sterling : His per- 
sonal aspect. Slavery Question. Sterling's dashing guileless address. A 
walk westward together. Precious possessions of life. A party at his 
Father's: Church -of- England indifferency : A good investment. (92.) — 
Letter to Carlyle : Sterling's adventurous hunter spirit : Sartor Resartits. 
Unusual likeness between his Speech and Letters. A true man. (95.) 



SUMMARY. 241 

Chap. III. Bayswater. 

Frequent brief visits to London. Swift certainties amid wide uncertain- 
ties. Innocent friendly admonitions : Efforts to improve a friend's style, 
Sec. , and signal failure. Sterling's preaching : Brick-and-Mortar Apostle- 
ship. Removes permanently to London. His income sure to him. Resi- 
dence at Bayswater. How unfold one's little bit of talent? A small Aga- 
memnon, could he but find his Kingdom. Literature the one hope left, 
(p. 104.) — Ecclesiastical wrappages. Restless play of being. Consummate 
dexterity in debate : Flat Pantheism : His admirable temper. No deep 
belief. (107.) — Theological metaphysics: Flis misconception, and final 
loyal recognition of Goethe. A beautiful childlike soul. Measured his man 
less by reputation than by what he had to show for himself. Frederick 
Maurice : Their kindly friendship. The good and Rev. Mr. Dunn. Silent 
"and rapid modifications, (no.) 

Chap. IV. To Bordeaux. 

Frank Edgeworth. Shadow-fighting. Education and the Clergy. Hy- 
pocrisy the one bad and fearful thing, (p. 114.) — A rainy walk : Another 
dangerous illness. Here is not thy rest. Removes with his Family to Bor- 
deaux. Five health-journeys. (116.) — Letter to Carlyle : Montaigne's 
House : Caves of St. Emilion : Goethe. The war of rubrics left in the far 
distance. Spiritual return to the open air. Scenes of his early boyhood. 
Letter to his Mother. (119.) 

Chap. V. To Madeira. 

Leaves Bordeaux. A little cottage on Blackheath : Sterling's delicate 
and loving sympathy : The burden of Life : Darkness. Literary occupa- 
tions : Imperfections of his poems. Sterling's pulpit style of reading. 
(p. 126.)— To Madeira for the winter : A sad adieu. Improved health : 
Beautiful scenery : Cheerful busy days. Letter to Carlyle : High admira- 
tion for Goethe, and real sorrow he was not somebody else : A pleasant 
refuge : Mrs. Carlyle. Letter to Charles Barton : Description of the Island. 
(128.)— Professor Wilson's generous encouragement. The Onyx Ring. A 
pleasant circle : Dr. Calvert. (134.) 

Chap. VI. Literature : The Sterling Club. 

Free-choice and necessity : A life too vehement for the bodily strength. 
An improvise? genius. Sterling's worth as a writer : A real seer-glance into 
the world of our day. Difference in material, (p. 136.)— Nomadic vicissi- 
tudes. Illusive hopes. Conscious how much he needed patience : His 
manful faith. Literature. The Sterling Club. To Rome for the winter : 
A farewell walk. (138.) 



242 SUMMARY. 

Chap. VII. Italy. 

Through Belgium and Switzerland to Rome. Letters to his Mother : 
Passage over the Alps : Italy. Valley of the Arno : Pescia : Book of Com- 
mon Prayer and Arabian Nights condensed into one : Pisa. English poli- 
tics, (p. 141.) — Rome and the Papacy : Guildhall finery : A dash of Southern 
enjoyment in the condition of the meanest : Idleness. (148.) — Letter to his 
eldest Boy : Sterling's great excellence in such Letters. (151.) — Art : A 
windy gospel. Tragic playactorism under God's earnest sky : An eye for 
facts : Duty of abhorrence. The Carnival. His companions in Italy. His 
Wife's illness :• Hurries home. (153.) 



PART III. 
Chap. I. Clifton. 



Sterling's improved health. Spreads his tent-habitation : Beautiful and 
pathetic. Friends old and new : Francis Newman. No hope of perman- 
ency. Education Question. Letter to Carlyle : Easier to write to, than 
about : Review of Teufelsdrockh : Strauss : Mrs. Strachey : Little Charlotte 
and her Doll. (p. 161.) — Sterling often in London : Friendly colloquies 
amid the chaotic roar of things : A day's riding : At once a child and a 
gifted man. A way to kindle enthusiasm. Article on Carlyle : First gene- 
rous human recognition. Sterling's stiff gainsayings : The silent hours : 
Loyalty to truth. Letter to his Father : Ten thousand follies no equivalent 
for one wisdom. (167.)— A parting of the ways, Poetry or Prose? By his 
thought, not by his mode of delivering it, must a man live or die. Better 
make History than try to sing about it. Sterling's uncertainties : Illness : A 
Volume of Poems. (171.) 

Chap. II. Two Winters. 

On his way to Madeira : Stays at Falmouth. Resources and climate. 
An interesting Quaker family : Companions, (p. 174.) — Returns to Clifton : 
Vague hopes : No man knows another's burden. Letter to his Father : A 
fall. Poetry: The Election: Tragedy of Strafford : Stubborn realism. 
(177.)— Torquay. The loss of friends. Clifton again. Penzance. Fal- 
mouth friends : Mrs. Sterling. (180.) 

Chap. III. Falmouth: Poems. 

Falmouth : Its frank interesting population. Sterling's deepest wish, to 
be equal to his work. His Books. His high notions of Tragedy. A 



SUMMARY. 243 

Lecture. The Foxes. Letter to his Father : Historical painting : A Poly- 
technic Meeting, (p. 183.) — Cornish heroism and Methodist faith : The 
Misses Fox. The Election, a Poem : Mixture of mockery and earnestness : 
Portrait of Mogg : A pretty picture. Sterling's brave struggle. Poor Cal- 
vert's death. (189.) — Starting a Periodical : No fighting regiment possible. 
The solitary battle. Adieu, O Church ; in God's name, adieu ! Books and 
Writers. The great World-Horologe. (195.) 

Chap. IV. Naples: Poems. 

A wish to see Naples. Letter to Charles Barton : Invitation to join him. 
Letter to his Mother : Malta. At Naples. Letter to Carlyle : The Protes- 
tant Burial-ground : Neapolitans : Pompeii, (p. 197.) — A French moral 
epidemic. Improved health. Lockhart : John Mill's work on Logic. A 
new Poem, Cceur-de-Lion : Strafford not yet published. A Christmas Tree. 
Moffat's Missionary Labours in South Africa. (203.) 



Chap. V. Disaster on Disaster. 

His Father's household an ever-open port of refuge. His Father a pro- 
sperous, loosely-joyous, victorious man. Sudden changes of opinion and 
policy, with intrinsic consistency of aim. The Times Newspaper his express 
emblem. An improvising faculty without parallel. Note of thanks from 
Sir Robert Peel : Reply. Hero-worship for Peel and Wellington. O'Connell 
on the wings of blarney, (p. 206.) — So rolled the fruitful days. Sterling's 
happy relations with his Father. Encounters a dangerous accident : His 
Mother too seized by a painful and fatal disease. Hastens to London. Im- 
pending tragedy. Returns to his Wife, now near her confinement. (212.) — 
Two gentle Letters to his dying Mother : Beauty and Eternity of Life. His 
tender solicitude for his true-hearted Wife. In two hours both Mother and 
Wife are suddenly snatched from him. Very solitary amid the tumult of 
fallen and falling things. (214.) 



Chap. VI. Ventnor: Death. 

Sterling calls his Children round him : A Mother as well as Father to 
them : God will care for all. Removes to Ventnor, and once more resumes 
his work. The Poem of Cceur-de-Lion. An honourable capacity to stand 
single against the world, (p. 218.) — Visits London. His Father's closing 
days. One of the saddest of dinners : The time for sport is past. A last 
interview. Ventnor again : Mrs. Maurice, his Wife's Sister : His broken 
life lies heavy on him. He works steadily at his task. Letter to Carlyle : 
Flashes of sad wild gaiety : His new, changed life. "(221.) — His last illness : 
Perfect courage : His affairs he settled to the last item. The Bible, most 



244 SUMMARY. 

earnest of books. Letter to his eldest Boy : Serene, victorious, divinely sad. 
He 'had struggled so high, and gained so little here. Letter to Carlyle : Not 
by knowledge, but by faith in God. Sacred possessions. Sterling's calm 
last hours : The faint last struggle ended. (225. ) 



Chap. VII. Conclusion. 

Sterling's general aspect : His frank cheerful impetuosity. No good 
Portrait of him. An honourable man and good citizen : Clear and perfect 
fidelity to Truth : Like a true son, not like a mutinous rebel. By few Eng- 
lishmen had the thing called Church of England been more loyally appealed 
to, or more sorrowfully left. (p. 230.) — By nature appointed for a Poet, 
rather than a Priest. A tragic history, yet a brave and noble one. Strange 
aberrations appointed him. Many a man's history shown in this image of a 
fellow pilgrim's, — released from his toils before the hottest of the day. By 
what means is a noble life still possible forme here? (234.) 



INDEX. 



Age, admonitions of our, 172. See Epoch. 
of, 14 
gospel, "154. 



Art, a superabundance 



; a windy 






A rthur Co?iingsby, Sterling's first Novel, 

55, 62, 82. 
Athenceum, copyright of the, changes 

hands, 38, 40, 55. 

Battle, the, appointed for us all, 6 ; Ster- 
ling's gallant enthusiasm, 32, 34; pain 
and danger shall not be shirked, 53 ; a 
doomed voyage, 79, 85 ; the noblest 
struggle, with the Church, 92 ; the bat- 
tle's fury rages everywhere, 172 ; each 
man for himself must wage it, 195 ; like 
a true son, not like a mutinous rebel, 
232, 236. 

Belief, theoretic and actual, 108. 

Bible, the most earnest of books, 227. 

Black dragoon, a, in every parish, 32 ; 
considerably silvered over, 56. 

Blackwood's Magazine, Sterling's con- 
nexion with, 134, 139. 

Bordeaux, Sterling at, 118. 

Boyd, Lieut. Robert, joins with Torrijos, 
60 ; at Gibraltar, 64, 65 ; death,, 77. 

Brick-and-mortar Apostleship, 105. 

Buller, Mrs., death of, 42. 

Bute, Isle of, its climate and scenery, 7, 
i3- 

Calvert, Dr., meets Sterling at Madeira 
132 ; a touching bond of union, 135 
accompanies him to Rome, 141, 144 
Sterling nurses, him in sickness, 148 
weather-bound at Falmouth, 174 ; wear- 
ing visibly weaker, 186 ; death, 194. 

Cambridge, superiority of, 31. 

Cant, dead and putrid, 84. 

Carlyle first hears definitely of Sterling, 
75 ; pleasantly impressed by Arthtcr 
CoJiingsby, 82 ; sees Sterling's Father, 
89 ; first interview with Sterling, 92 ; lis- 
tens unprofited to friendly admonitions, 
104 ; high topics, 108 ; insists upon the 
good of evil, 115: a rainy walk, 116; 
Sterling's friendly sympathy, 127 ; a 
sad farewell, 128 ; a hurried escort, 



141 ; fruitful talk in straitened circum- 
stances, 167 ; the first human recogni- 
tion, 168 ; a strange effulgence, 214 ; 
the saddest of dinners, 222 ; sacred pos- 
sessions, 230 ; a commission higher than 
the world's, 236. 

Carlyle, Mrs., and Sterlings Mother, 94 ; 
Sterling's affectionate remembrance, 
120; a humble imitation, 131 ; a gentle 
message, 201 ; love in death, 229. 

Carnival, the, 156. 

Children, Sterling's letters to, 151, 227. 

Church, the dead English, distilled into 
life again, 51 ; Sterling's fatal attempt 
to find sanctuary in it, 82, 85 ; com- 
mended for its very indifferency, 94 ; 
found wanting, 195, 233. 

Church-formuks, Sterling's battle with, 
3 ; no living relation to him, 45 ; sin- 
gular old rubrics, 46 ; thrashing of the 
straw, 123. 

Classicality, what meant by, 29. 

Clifton, Sterling at, 161, 182. 

Club, The Sterling, 139. 

Cobwebs, a world overhung with, 32, 80. 

Ccezir-de-Lion, is the best of Sterling's 
Poems, 195, 204, 21.9, 220 ; his own ac- 
count of it, 224. 

Coleridge on Highgate Hill, a Dodona- 
Oracle, 41, 46 ; Sterling's assiduous 
attendance, 48 ; a magical ingredient 
in the wild caldron of his mind, 54, 
79, 82, 84, 91 ; waning influence, 114 ; 
a lesson for us all, 196. 

Conscious and unconscious realities, 81, 
90. 

Cornish heroism, 189. 

Cowbridge, a smart little town, 14. 

Cromwell, Sterling's feeling about, 222, 
224. 

Doll's shoes, a feat accomplished, 166. 
Dunn, the Rev. Mr., 113. 

Edgeworth, Frank, account of, 114. 
Education, mainly trusted with the Clergy 

at present, 116; Sterling's opinion on, 

164. 



246 



INDEX. 



Election, the, a mock-heroic poem by 

Sterling, 179 ; description ; portrait of 

Mogg ; a pretty picture, 192. 
English Character, manful style of, 31 ; 

stoical pococurantism, 112 ; wise chiefly 

by instinct, 209. 
Epoch, a bewildered, 33, 91. 
Eternal Melodies, and grinding discords, 

79- 
Exeter, Bishop of, resemblance between 

the, and the Archbishop of Tuam, 148. 
Exeter Hall, and its Puritan mummies, 

224. 

Falmouth, Sterling at, 174, 183. 

Fame, as they call it, 4, 38. 

Family-likenesses between Sterling and 
his parents, n ; contrasts and concord- 
ances, 89, 137, 209. 

Foxes, the, a pleasant Quaker family, 
176, 180, 181, 183, 186; modest Anti- 
Hudson testimonial, 190. 

French rage against Britain, 203. 

French Revohdion, Carlyle's, published, 
126. 

Glamorgan, "Vale of, 14. 

Goethe's last birthday, 74 ; Epigram, 115 ; 
Sterling's gradual recognition _ of his 
worth, in, 135 ; cannot find in him 
what he would expect in Jean Paul, 
122 ; looks at him like a shying horse 
at a post, 129. 

Greek Dramatic forms, 185. 

Hare, Archdeacon, and his Biography of 
Sterling, 2 ; his testimony to Sterling's 
high character, 28 ; their opportune 
"meeting at Bonn, 83 ; Sterling becomes 
his Curate, 84 ; a welcome fellow-la- 
bourer, 88. 

Hell, Sterling's desire for earnest well- 
doing, were it even in, 94 ; no_ perdition 
so perilous as a faithless, lying spirit, 
92. 

Highgate Hill, a view from, 47. 

Hypocrisy, the old true paths submerged 
in, 84 ; the one thing bad, 92, 116 ; si- 
lence far preferable, 154; duty of ab- 
horrence, 156. 

Idleness in Rome, 150. 

Inspiration of God the only real intelli- 
gence, 34 ; the unforgivable sin to 
swerve from, 46, 52. 

Intellect and Virtue, one great summary 
of gifts, 169. 

Kemble, Fanny, Sterling's admiration 
for, 42. 

Literature a chaotic haven, 38 ; and last 
resource, 107, 123, 127 ; real and sham, 
137- 



Llanblethian, a pleasant little Welsh vil- 
lage, 14, 15. 

Lockhart, Sterling's admiring estimate 
of, 204. 

Madeira, its beautiful climate and scen- 
ery, 128, 132. 

Maurice, Rev. F. D., a Cambridge com- 
panion of Sterling's, 31 ; joins him in 
the Athenaeum adventure, 38, 41 ; di- 
vergence of opinion, but kindly trustful 
union of hearts, 113, 223 ; marries Ster- 
ling's sister-in-law, 125. 

Maurice's, Mrs., affectionate solicitude 
for Sterling and his orphan family, 219, 
223, 230. 

Michael Angelo, house of, 146. 

Might and Right, their intrinsic identity, 
169. 

Mill's, John, friendship for Sterling, 75, 
82 ; introduces him to Carlyle, 92 ; has 
charge of the London and Westminster 
Review, 139 ; with Sterling in Italy, 
160 ; inserts his Article on Carlyle, 
168 ; with Sterling at Falmouth, 176 ; 
his work on Logic, 204. 

Moffat, the African Missionary, 205. 

Montaigne's House, 120 ; Sterling's Es- 
say, 139. 

Moonshine, Bottled, and illusory 
Churches, 80 ; diseased developments, 
84 ; more perilous than any perdition, 
92. 

Naples, Sterling at, 200 ; eminent ignor- 
ance of the Neapolitans, 202. 

Negro Slaves, the, unfit for freedom, 68 ; 
devotion to a good Master, 73. 

Newman, Francis, Sterling's high esteem 
for, 162. 

O'Connell on the wings of blarney, 212. 
Old-clothes, heaps of, 3. 
Onyx Ring, the, Sterling's Tale of, in, 
133 ; still worth reading, 134. 

Pantheism, 109. 

Peel and Wellington, Edward Sterling's 

admiration of, 207, 211 ; note of thanks 

from Sir Robert Peel, 210. 
Peter's, St., in masquerade, 158. 
Poetry or Prose ? a parting of the ways 

for Sterling, 171, 179; Poetry, 190, 220, 

2 34- 
Politics, English, restless whirl of, 147 ; 

a social mine below, 159. 
Pompeii and its Fresco Paintings, 202. 
Pope, the, a glance at, through Sterling's 

eyes, 155 ; a lie in livery, 156 ; candid 

confession about him, 164. 
Professions, the learned, hateful not lov- 
able, 35. 
Puseyisms, begotten by Coleridge from 

his own fantasies, 54, 92. 



INDEX. 



247 



Radicalism, Sterling's early, 32, 44 ; tot- 
tering for him, and threatening to 
crumble, 56 ; fallen to wreck, 80 ; the 
opposite extreme, 106. 

Reece, Mr., Sterling's early schoolmaster, 
19, 22. 

Religion cannot be made-up of doubts, 
85, 92. 

Revolutionary Horologe, 57. 

Rhadamanthus's post long vacant, 214. 

Rome, Sterling at, 148, 154. 

Saint-Simonian Portent, the, 41, 121. 

Sartor Resartus, Sterling's letter on, 95. 

Scepticism, so rife in our day, 5. 

Sexton's Daughter, Sterling's, 124 ; still 
in the shadows of the surplice, 127. 

Silence, greatness and fruitfulness of, 169. 

Simplon Pass, the, 143. 

Slavery Question, Sterling's notions on 
the, 93. See Negro Slaves. 

Spanish Refugees, 56, 58, 75, 

Stars gone out, 34, 85, 123. 

Sterling, Anthony, born, 12 ; earlymemo- 
ries, 13 ; a steady, substantial boy, 25 ; 
enters a military life, 28 ; letter to, 42 ; 
at home on a visit, 124 ; meets his Bro- 
ther in Italy, 160 ; quits the army, 221 ; 
at his Brother's dying bed, 230. 

Sterling, John, born in the Isle of Bute, 
7 ; early life in Wales, 13 ; at Passy, 22 ; 
London, 23 ; runs away from home, 25 ; 
sent to Glasgow University, 28 ; life at 
Cambridge, 28 ; a Secretaryship, 36 ; 
the A thencetcm, 38 ; attendance on Cole- 
ridge, 48 ; intimacy with the Barton fa- 
mily, 55, 59 ; connexion with Torrijos, 
58 ; engaged to Miss Barton, 63 ; Mar- 
riage, 65 ; illness, 66 ; at the Island of 
St. Vincent, 67 ; news of the Spanish 
Catastrophe, 75 ; returns to London, 
81 ; meets Mr. Hare at Bonn, 83 ; Cu- 
rate at Herstmonceux, 87 ; quits the 
Church, 91 ; life in London, 92 ; at 
Bayswater, 105 ; another serious illness, 
116; at Bordeaux, 118; Madeira, 128; 
literary efforts, 136 ; journey to Italy, 
141 ; at Rome, 148 ; at Clifton, 161 ; 
Article on Carlyle, 168 ; at Falmouth, 
174 ; Clifton again, 177 ; Torquay, 180; 
Falmouth, 183 ; Naples, 197 ; home 
again, 203 ; a dangerous accident, 213 ; 
Mother and Wife both taken from him, 
217 ; removes to Ventnor, 218 ; his last 
sickness and death, 226. 

Letters to his Father, 164, 170, 

177, 187, 196, 203 ; to his Mother, 
25, 68, 125, 142, 163, 166, 184, 196, 
199, 205, 214, 215 ; to both, 148, 157, 
174 ; to his Brother, 42 ; to his Son, 
151, 227 ; to T. Carlyle, 95, 119, 129, 
163, 164, 184, 200, 223, 229 ; to Charles 
Barton, 62, 131, 180, 198 ; to Mr. Hare, 
156, 194 ; to Mrs. Charles Fox, 180, 



181 ; to W. Coningham, 181, 182 ; to 
Dr. Carlyle, 182 ; to Dr. Symonds, 184, 
196, 204, 217. 

Sterling, John : his Classical attainments, 
29 ; unusual likeness between his speech 
and letters, 103 ; pulpit manner of read- 
ing, 127 ; worth as a Writer, 137, 151, 
227 ; superior excellence in prose, 172 ; 
the Election, a Poem, 179 ; undeniable 
success, 191 ; Coetir-de-Lion, 219 ; liter- 
ary remains, 235. 

— — his Character need not be judged 
in any Church-court, 2 ; a Guy-Faux 
likeness, 4 ; lucky to have had such 
parents as his, n ; nomadic tendencies, 
23 ; a headlong Boy of twelve, 25 ; a 
voracious reader and observer, 27 ; 
gifts, generosities, and pieties, 28; a 
young ardent soul, 32 ; a kingly kind 
of man, 33 ; nomadic desultory ways, 
35 ; able to argue with four or five at 
once, 36 ; a brother to all worthy souls, 
40 ; not given to lie down and indo- 
lently moan, 65 ; rich in the power to 
be miserable or otherwise, 78 ; the ta- 
lent of waiting, of all others, the one he 
wanted most, 84 ; generous ardour for 
whatever seemed noble and true, 87 ; 
bright ingenuity and audacity, 94 ; 
candour and transparency, 103 ; cheery 
swift decision, 104 ; not intrinsically a 
devotional mind, 109 ; too vehement, 
fatally^ incapable of sitting still, 136 ; 
a certain grimmer shade came gradually 
over him, 138 ; beautiful and pathetic 
adjustment to his hard conditions, 162 ; 
a strange effulgence through the ice of 
earnest pain and sorrow, 214, 222 ; a 
central inflexibility and noble silent re- 
solution, 220 ; perfect courage and vali- 
ant simplicity of heart, 226 ; serene, 
victorious, divinely sad, 227 ; spiritual 
portraiture, 232. 

his Personal aspect, 93, in, 230; 

his Life an expressive emblem of his 
Time, 6, 91, 235. 

Sterling, Mrs., her beautiful character 
and early troubles, 66 ; a perilous situa- 
tion, 70 ; her weakly constitution, 160, 
177 ; illness, 216 ; sudden death, 217 ; 
an affectionate loyal-hearted Wife, 218. 

Sterling's Father, early career of, 9 ; his 
restless striving, 20 ; connexion with the 
Times Newspaper, 20, 21 ; a private 
gentleman of some figure, 89 ; the Magus 
of the Times, 94; abundant jolly satire, 
126 ; his house a sunny islet, and ever- 
open port for Sterling, 206 ; the Times 
Newspaper his express emblem, 208 ; 
England listened to the voice, 209 ; 
Note of thanks from Sir Robert Peel, 
210 ; loyal admiration for Peel and Wel- 
lington, and ditto contempt for O'Con- 
nell, 211; pleasant half-bantering dia- 



248 



INDEX. 



lect between Father and Son, 213 ; a 
fatal eclipse, 213 ; alone in the world, 
217 ; closing days, 221. 

Sterling's Mother, delicate pious charac- 
ter of, 11 ; affectionate care for him, 
23 ; troubled days, 26 ; friendship for 
Madam Torrijos, 58 ; for Mrs. Carlyle, 
94 ; a pleasant home, 213 ; fatal illness, 
213 ; Sterling's reverent affection for 
her, 214, 217 ; news of her death, 217. 

Strachey, Mrs. Edward, 162, 165. 

Strafford, Sterling's tragedy of, 179, 205, 
220. 

Strauss, 165, 184, 195. 

Talk, Coleridge's, 48. 

Theological Metaphysics, Sterling's inter- 
est in, in, 114; decidedly abating, 123. 

Times, the, Newspaper. See Sterling's 
Father. 

Tongue-fence, Sterling's skill in, 36, 109. 

Torrijos, General, the main-stay of his 
fellow Exiles, 58 ; they leave England, 
64 ; difficulties at Gibraltar, 65 ; a cata- 
strophe, 75 ; death, 77. 



Toryism an overgrown Imposture, 44 ; 

the Pope a respectable old Tory, 148 ; 

English Toryism not so bad as Irish, 

196. 
Tragedy, Sterling's high notions of, 185. 

Universities, the English, 30. 

Veracity the one sanctity of life, 92 ; small 
still voices, 123 ; clear and perfect fide- 
lity to Truth, 232. 

Vetus, Letters of, 20. 

Vincent, St., Island of, Sterling's resi- 
dence in the, 67. 

Volto Santo, the, chief of Relics, 147. 

Watch and Canary Bird, Mrs. Carlyle's, 

Watt, James, 173. 
Welsh Villages, 15. 
West-Indian Tornado, 68. 
Wilson's, Professor, generous encourage- 
ment of Sterling, 134. 
Wordsworth, 127. 



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Is. 6d. Part III., containing 14 Charts, 7s. Part III. also kept in 
Sections 1, 2, and 5, Is. 6d. each ; 3 and 4 together, 3s. 
*#* The Charts sold separately. 

Horse-shoes and Horse-shoeing; their Origin, 

History, Uses, and Abuses. By George Fleming, E.E. F.E.G.S., 
&c. 210 Engravings. In demy 8vo, 21s. 



HE. DICKENS'S WORKS. 



THE 'CHARLES DICKENS' EDITION. 

Edition. With Illustra- 
or in Roxburgh binding £3 



Completion of the ' Charles Dickens 
tions. 19 vols, royal 16mo, 31 Is. Qd, 



Pickwick Papers With 8 Illustrations. 

Martin Chuzzlewit 

Dombey and Son 

Nicholas Nickleby... 

David Copperfield ■ 

Bleak House 

Little Dorrit •• 

Our Mutual Friend 

Tale of Two Cities 

Sketches by Boz • 

American Notes, and Reprinted Pieces 

Barnaby Budge 

Christmas Books 

Old Curiosity Shop 

Oliver Twist 

Great Expectations 

Hard Times, and Pictures from Italy 

Uncommercial Traveller With 4 Illustrations. 

A Child's History of England ditto 



ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 
ditto 



193 PICCADILLY, LONDON. 



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